Word: fraude
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Johnson knew that identity theft violates both state and federal laws, so he called the FBI and was forwarded to the Secret Service, which investigates counterfeiting and other types of financial fraud. An agent asked whether the case involved more than $25,000. Otherwise, he intimated, he had bigger fish...
...would have been pretty much the same had he called months earlier or phoned a precinct in Kansas City or Key West. In an age of instant credit, when you can apply online and start shopping within 30 seconds, identity theft has become an American epidemic. Calls to the fraud-victims help line at a national credit bureau have nearly doubled from the 522,922 received in 1997, and 86,168 identity-theft cases were reported to the Federal Trade Commission last year, making it the top consumer-fraud complaint. Because law enforcement lacks the manpower to investigate...
...that may change, as government and industry efforts converge to protect a staple of the U.S. economy: easy credit. Sept. 11 underscored the ways that terrorists use identity theft to slip into U.S. society and fund their operations. Investigators have linked several suspects to credit-card fraud, including the two men with box cutters who were arrested on a train Sept. 12. The terrorist convicted last year in a 1999 plot to blow up Los Angeles International Airport used 13 identities lifted from the membership files of a Boston health club. Potential losses in Secret Service investigations jumped from...
Consumers have to pay only the first $50 of fraudulent charges made on their accounts, and many lenders waive even that amount. But last year credit-fraud victims spent countless hours and an average of $1,173 to restore their credit ratings. And all it takes to get the ball rolling is one crooked telemarketer or someone who fishes a receipt or "preapproved" credit-card offer out of your trash...
There are no national figures on prosecution rates for identity theft, but everyone involved agrees they are low and that the only practical alternative is prevention. Victims are advised to place fraud alerts on their credit reports, which flag potential lenders to contact their home or office before approving an application. Two months after Johnson posted these preauthorization advisories, Gateway's lending arm called to say it had rejected a fraudulent application. The same day, American Express phoned to see whether Johnson had received an Optima card--one he hadn't applied...