Sheriff warns: Identity thieves aiming young

By MARSHA DORGAN
Register Staff Writer

Little Jorge is only eight months old. So his mother was surprised when she received a notice in the mail asking her son to appoint a beneficiary for his employee insurance payouts.

Jorge's mother had no idea how it had come to pass that her infant was registered as an employee at a North Bay warehouse.

It turns out little Jorge was a target of an increasingly common form of ripping off the public: Identity theft.

Identity theft has been around for decades, according to Napa County Sheriff's detective Todd Hancock. However, within the past few years, thieves who appropriate credit card, Social Security and other numbers are now preying on the younger set.

Tami Neely, a representative with LifeLock, a company that offers identify theft protection, said at birth most states give children a Social Security number and a credit report. This information may seem meaningless to the parents at the time. However, many identity thieves take this opportunity to gather information about their next victims.

Neely recalls the case of a 16-year-old who was repeatedly turned down for jobs.

"We checked into his background and found out that he was in arrears of his payments for a house boat -- which, according to our records, he would have to (have) been 8 year -old when he purchased," Neely said, "We contacted him and his mother."

The false houseboat purchase cost the boy and his family about $4,000, and a huge amount of their time to get the credit mess straighten out, Neely said.

"He didn't have to pay for the houseboat, but it took an incredible amount of his and his mother's time to work everything out. It was a huge nightmare for both of them. He is just a kid trying to establishing his credit. And his mother is just doing everything she can to help him out.

"The boy's mother said the information about her son must have come from her pediatrician's records, which she believed were shredded." When she took him took the doctor she had to give his name and Social Security number on a sign-up sheet, which ended up in the garbage, giving the identity thieves the opportunity to retrieve personal information about the youngsters."

Hancock said garbage sacks and recycling bins are a haven for those looking to cruise the identify theft circuit.

Within a few days of a child's birth the Social Security office sends the family notification of the baby's Social Security number, which is theirs for life, Neely said. "Unfortunately, too often these records fall into the hands of people who use them to access credit reports and other personal financial records."

Not just online

Hancock said most people are more vulnerable to identity theft when it comes to mailbox theft, telephone and mail scams.

"These people get their information from dumpsters and retrieving trash from other sources. About only 1 to 2 percent of identity theft comes from hacking in on the computer," Hancock said.

"Never give any of your personal credit information over the phone if you have any doubts about the caller's credibility. One credit card number or bank account number is all it takes to put you on the roller coaster of being an identity theft victim," Hancock said. "Just use common sense. If the person who calls you triggers something that makes you suspicious, trust your judgment. Don't give out any information you do not feel comfortable doing so."

Joen McDaniel, senior vice president of Napa Community Bank, said when the bank encounters a customer who has been a victim of identity theft or fraud, the first thing it recommends is that that person contact the credit bureau.

"The credit bureau puts a flag on the person's account, which assures the customer that they will be on the lookout for anyone (using) the account for fraudulent purposes," McDaniel said.

"If the person is one of our customers -- say they lost their checkbook of AMT card -- we close all of their accounts, just as a safety precaution. We reopen new accounts for them," she said.

Those who are victims of identify theft need to notify credit card companies and their bank, Hancock said.

"If this is done immediately, they most likely will not be held responsible for charges on their account which they did not authorize," he said.

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