Appendix 2: Who Is Stealing Your Identity Answers
1.) If you said yes, you have been scammed. Mark Shae never died as Nancy claimed. In fact, their names were actually Mark and Nancy Dreksler. The Drekslers moved around three times in less than a year to outrun the cops, who wanted them on charges of fraud to the tune of over $110,000 in purchases with other people’s money. The online community lost $60,000 in money and even more in free labor to “help” in her “time of need.” They also ran a number of online auction scams in which they would use fake eBay screen names to auction off items they would never send.
2.) If you are the officers of MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems), you agree and meet one of the most fascinating people you could ever imagine. You hire young Bill Gates and are responsible for helping to propel Gates to his stardom today in the field of computers and electronics. If you said no, you said no to Microsoft.
3.) I hope you said no, because Scott Levine was indicted on 144 counts of conspiracy, fraud, money laundering, and obstruction of justice in 2004. He targets the company Acxiom Corp, stealing 8.2 gigabytes of personal data and costing the company and individuals over $7 million in damages. Scott and his company, Snipermail.com, were deeply involved in identity theft.
4.) Follow up on the mistake with each of the major credit bureaus and the federal government. In 2005, Steve Millet attempted to apply for a job at Target and was denied on the basis that he was already an employee. As it turns out, it was not a mistake. An illegal immigrant had purchased Steve’s social security number and used it not only to get a job, but also to take out loans, pay taxes, buy a car, and open a dozen different credit cards. The person got away with the theft for over ten years by flying under the radar and making sure that he or she did not get too far into debt or otherwise notify the real Steve Millet of the problem. If Steve had not followed up, the case would have probably been swept under the rug, leaving it further ruining his finances for years to come.
5.) A woman from Missouri did, and he scammed her for thousands of dollars. When the date of his return came and went, the e-mail account he had been using was deleted, and he disappeared. She never heard from him again, and because she sent the money via wire transfer, there was no way to track who actually picked it up in Africa. For the price of a few teddy bears and balloons, the scam artist made big bucks — and broke someone’s heart. In fact, he probably used the same scam and story on dozens of other women as well, although no one has ever been able to catch him.
6.) John Ozarchuck did, and four months later he and his now-wife, Christine, got engaged. Over two years later, the couple is still extremely happy and now has a baby. As opposed to the previous scenario, neither person asked the other for money or favors, and their date in real life helped confirm that they were both trustworthy.
7.) In 2005, Mark Anthony Kolowich and his Web site, World Express Rx, were shut down for running a business just like that one. He sold counterfeit drugs, most of which were unregulated by any kind of government and smuggled into the country through Mexico. The users of his site were asked to pay a small fee for review of their case, but there were never any doctors on the World Express Rx team. They approved everyone in order to make the most money possible. The drugs they sold were labeled as generic, but they contained very real ingredients, similar if not duplications of the ingredients found in drugs like Viagra, Cialis, Xenical, and Celebrex, among many others. Kolowich also offered to help other online pharmaceutical companies start selling drugs online, and as he helped to build an empire, a single site working under him could expect to make over $1.5 million in sales during a year or two. Meanwhile, the drugs people were getting were illegal, and some did not even contain the right ingredients, putting people’s health at risk. Online drug companies simply cannot be trusted to uphold the same standards as real life businesses. If they do not require a prescription, stay away.
8.) If you did, you would be a multi-millionaire, because the person I just described was Larry Page, one of the co-founders of Google. Although his page rank technology can review Web sites with incredible accuracy and speed, this is not a program meant to steal your identity. It is simply a tool for searching online. When someone explains a new program like this, it is extremely hard to weed out the poor programs that will create insecure information opportunities and valid programs that can really be an asset to the Internet. Even worse, many people equate “computer expert” with “identity thief” these days.
9.) While the coach may mean no harm, do not release the social security number. Asking for such information through e-mail is always a bad sign, and what is worse is you have not been told how this information will be stored or in what cases, exactly, it will be used before you are asked. It is important to note that there have been cases of coaches, school personnel, or families of those involved stealing the players’ identities, simply by logging online to the coach’s e-mail address and looking up the numbers. As a concerned parent, you definitely should be suspicious. Instead of e-mailing the number, fill out a form in the presence of the coach, seal it in an envelope, and sign the seal. If the information is ever legitimately needed, like if your son is ever taken to the emergency room, the seal can be broken and the information found. However, at the end of the season, you should get the envelope back intact. That is the best way to ensure that your son’s identity is not stolen.
10.) Of course, not every situation works out like this one, but scammer and identity thief Chalana McFarland pulled house-flipping scams like this for a number of years. The houses they showed were often not even houses they owned yet. McFarland would work with crooked appraisers to inflate the price of the house, and the inspections would be forged. They would “sell” you the house, wait for your loan to go through, and then buy the house for much less than what you paid them. After only a few months of living in the house, the buyers would find out that the renovations needed would add thousands and thousands more to their debt, and most people defaulted, leaving lenders with houses worth much less than the amount still owed on the loan. On top of that, McFarland would now have your social security number, credit information, and more, making identity theft possible. In the space of a few years, McFarland made over $20 million — she was caught, though, and is now serving a 30-year prison sentence. That may be a good thing, but even though she is off the streets, hundreds of families have had their finances ruined and their identities stolen, and there is little they can do to repair their credit.