This From: The Las Angeles Times, October 31, 1998
http://www.latimes.com

New Law to Assist Victims in Fight Against Identity Fraud
http://www.latimes.com/sbin/iawrapper?NS-search-set=/363c0/aaaa004le3c04e1&
NS-doc-offset=5&NS-adv-search=1&

Crime: Under the act, such theft is now a felony and the FTC will help fix
damage to credit and other records.


By
KATHY M. KRISTOF,
Special to The Times

A new law signed Friday by President Clinton promises to crack down on the
growing crime of identity fraud.

The law helps bring closure to Laguna Niguel attorney Mari Frank's two-year
ordeal. Designed to stem one of the biggest and fastest-growing financial
frauds in America, the law could benefit hundreds of thousands of people
who, like Frank, suddenly wake up to learn that somebody else has been
living their life.

The Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act of 1998 recognizes people
such as Frank as victims of a crime and, for the first time, gives them the
right to file police reports and recoup their damages. It also stiffens
prison sentences for impostors, making the crime of posing as another
person for economic gain--as well as to hide criminal activity--a felony
punishable with prison sentences ranging from three to 25 years.

And it appoints a federal agency--the Federal Trade Commission--to serve as
an advocate for victims, helping them find the right law enforcement agency
to prosecute their case and aiding their quest to fix the devastation that
ID theft can wreak. The law comes at a pivotal time, experts say. Although
no one has precise statistics, everyone seems to agree that identity theft
has become an epidemic.

The Secret Service, which tracks major ID theft cases, says the dollar
value of cases it follows has nearly doubled in the last year. In fiscal
1997, identity fraud cost $745 million, versus $450 million in 1996. The
Social Security Administration reported a threefold increase in improper
use of Social Security numbers. Credit reporting firms say fraud inquiries
have soared from less than 12,000 a year in 1992 to more than 500,000
today. Officials say the statistics are unscientific--based on anecdotal
rather than systematic data gathering--and probably understate the problem,
mainly because identity fraud can go for years before it's detected.

Frank's nightmare began late one night in 1996, when she got a call from
the Bank of New York asking why she hadn't made the monthly payment on her
credit card. Frank didn't have a credit card with Bank of New York. But her
double--who looks nothing like her, yet took Frank's background, her credit
and even some of her business cards--did.

The impostor also bought $50,000 in clothing and luxury items, plus a
Mustang convertible, and charged it on Frank's tab. The impostor, living in
Ventura County 200 miles to the north, had been enjoying the high life for
more than a year before the fraud was detected.

Fixing the damage required about 500 hours of time and cost $10,000, Frank
says. Yet law enforcement officials, judges and others shrugged off her
complaints.

Indeed, until the new act was signed into law, companies--not
individuals--were considered the victims of ID theft. That's because
individuals were not held personally liable for the massive bills impostors
ring up. Federal law states that consumers are liable for no more than $50
in fraudulent credit card charges if the fraud is reported promptly. In
most cases, credit card companies absorb even the $50.

"The local police were nice, but they told me that I was not the
victim--that the credit grantors would have to make the report," Frank
said. "Then I called the FBI and they said it wasn't their jurisdiction;
then the Secret Service, which said they only handled cases worth $200,000
or that were connected to a fraud ring. Finally, I called the Ventura
police [in whose jurisdiction the impostor was located]. They only helped
me because the watch commander had been victimized himself."

Individuals whose identities are stolen suffer in many ways--the least of
which is their ruined credit ratings. Some have lost jobs and promotions;
some run up thousands of dollars in phone expenses trying to erase
fraudulent charges and stop new ones; some end up with criminal records
created by their impostors; others have even been jailed, according to Sen.
Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), sponsor of the bill.

Consider what happened to Bob Hartle, a Phoenix-based aerospace worker who
was victimized by his mother's next-door neighbor. Hartle's impostor rang
up $100,000 in debt, filed bankruptcy, had automobile accidents and
speeding tickets, got hired and fired, and ran up tax bills, all in
Hartle's name. The impostor taunted Hartle, saying he would continue to
impersonate Hartle--there was no law to stop him.

"He actually called me on the phone and told me that he was going to use my
identity until he decided he didn't want to anymore," Hartle said. "He came
out and told me that there was no law enforcement agency that was
interested in his kind of crime and so I could never get him arrested. I
hate to say it, but he was right."

After calling virtually every law enforcement agency in the four states
where the impostor was operating--and spending an average of $400 a month
on long-distance calls--Hartle and his wife left their home in Iowa so they
could be nearer the criminal and, consequently, be more effective fighting
him. They finally got him arrested for falsifying documents.

The new law should make it easier to get police to take identity theft
seriously and to get erroneous items eliminated from credit and police
records.

Still, both Hartle and Frank, who have since written books to try to help
people negotiate the maze of restoring their credit and erasing the impact
of an impostor, believe that victims of ID fraud will continue to have a
difficult time regaining their lives.

And until U.S. privacy laws are tightened, more victims will emerge, Frank
says. "Identity theft occurs because of our lack of control over our
personal information," she said. "We don't have any central place to go
where we can view and correct our personal information, and yet it can be
shot all over the Internet in a matter of seconds. Until we clean up our
act and pass some privacy protections, this is going to continue. Even a
thumbprint can be corrupted by a hacker, if it's sent electronically."

Copyright 1998 Los Angeles Times.