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Any given week, police in Danville and San Ramon respond to between five and 15 reports of identity theft.
Between Feb. 10 and 23, for example, San Ramon Police received five calls for identity thefts, two for credit card fraud and one for unauthorized use of a computer. Between Feb. 12 and 25, Danville police received three calls for credit card fraud and four for identity theft; in the last six months police there have made four arrests for identity theft.
And on Feb. 27, a San Ramon woman was one of two people arrested at Motel 6 in Pleasanton with items linked to identity theft — document-making equipment, credit cards not in their names, fictitious drivers licenses, fictitious registration tags, computer equipment and computer disks.
Police say identity theft — using someone else’s name and account information to buy items for themselves — has been on the rise in the last few years.
Protect yourself from identity fraud
With identity theft cases on the rise in Danville and San Ramon, police and fraud expert Phil Blank say there are some simple things to do to cut the odds of being a victim.
San Ramon police Lt. Dan Pratt said said to be sure of anyone who emails or calls.
“Do not give any personal information to an unsolicited caller or person that you did initiate business with,” he said. “Shred all documentation that contains any personal information, such as: bank and credit card statements, loan applications. Report stolen credit cards immediately, check your credit report frequently, and carefully examine your bank and credit card statements for any unusual activity.”
Pratt also suggested that people get a locking mailbox and to personally bring outgoing mail to a secure box or the post office, and said it’s a good idea to change passwords often and to avoid public computers to do online banking or to check person email accounts.
“Protect your PIN numbers, especially at ATM machines,” he added.
Danville police advise people to be aware of how they carry wallets and purse when in public and to minimize the amount of credit cards people carry with them.
Police say large amounts of data stolen by hackers could wind up overseas and in other countries, where it could be months before stolen information is used.
San Ramon public safety Officer Darlene Kittredge recently suggested in a crime prevention newsletter that people use a pen with pigmented ink as opposed to dye ink, the most commonly found pen ink.
“As opposed to dye ink, which stains the paper and can easily be “washed off,” pigmented ink actually changes the paper. By weaving itself into the paper, that ink embeds into the fibers of the paper itself, making it impenetrable to many washing and bleaching techniques,” she said. “According to a 2006 American Bankers Association Deposit Account Fraud Survey Report, actual dollars stolen by check fraud was approximately $969 million.”
So many elderly people have become targets, the Pleasanton Police Department did a public safety announcement on a local radio station, according to Detective Michael Rossillon. He said one common scam is to call an older person saying a relative is in trouble and needs money, and asking for a wire transfer.
“We unfortunately are seeing a rise in that,” Rossillon said.
He also suggested that people cut back on the number of credit cards and bank accounts they have, so they have fewer statements to monitor.
Blank suggested some ways to protect electronic information, including making sure there’s a password needed to unlock a cell phone.
“Probably the easiest thing is to set account ‘alerts,'” he said. Blank was a target of a credit fraud himself, and said an account alert blocked a charge attempted when he personally wasn’t there, although thieves tried twice more to use the information they stole.
“When people get credit card numbers, they are traded quickly,” he said, explaining that those numbers are often sold on the Internet. “You can set alerts on your account so that whenever there’s a ‘card not present’ (meaning someone is trying to charge something over the phone or online) on your account, it tells you.”
Police also suggest that people put a security freeze on their credit report, which would require a pin number from anyone trying to access that information.
Blank said to “turn off the paper,” by using electronic statements whenever possible.
“A lot of this is free for consumers. They don’t need to be security geeks, they just need to be educated,” he said. “Learn the basics. What we don’t want to have happen is for people to go online and not do it safely.”
Other tips are:
* Use an up-to-date operating system and have all of the updates and patches applied.
* Use the latest version of your preferred browser and make sure that your browser plug-ins are also up-to-date.
* Do not jail break your iPhone — commonly done to get around the restrictions that Apple puts in place.
* Use an anti-virus protection package on your Android phone.
Local police departments have a complete list of tips.
One reason for the spike, according to Pleasanton Detective Michael Rossillon, is that the California Penal Code was expanded by Gov. Schwarzenegger to include a wider range of crimes.
“We’re quite inundated with the 530.5 section, which covers all identity theft,” Rossillon said. “It’s pretty lucrative and it’s hard to catch these criminals.”
He said another reason the crime is so popular is the low penalty involved: California’s code allows for a sentence of up to a year in a county jail and fines.
But a large part of the ongoing increase is that thieves are becoming more and more devious in obtaining information and making charges. Javelin Strategy and Research, a Pleasanton-based company that provides information for banks and others, just released a report that outlines some of the new ways thieves are getting stolen information.
Phil Blank, Javelin’s managing director of security risk and fraud, who also serves on the Pleasanton Planning Commission, said new technology is giving fraudsters more ways of getting and using personal information.
“What we’re seeing is a redirection of identity theft and identity fraud,” Blank said. “Fraudsters go where the money is, and with the proliferation of mobile devices we’re seeing increased risk of fraud.”
He said people with smart phones are more likely to be victims, because users are lax about security on their phones.
“In fact, smart phone users experience a fraud rate of 6.6 percent compared to 4.9 percent for all consumers; 4.9 percent of all consumers were victims of identity theft — that’s one in 20. The fraudsters are seeing smart phone users as a new, fertile landscape,” Blank said.
“Many smart phone owners don’t have password protection on their screen. Many smart phone owners don’t have what we call ‘remote wipe’ software installed on their phone. What this does — if I were to lose my phone, I could log on online and erase everything on my phone, even though I don’t have it in my possession.”
In addition, he said, many people keep personal information that makes it easy for thieves.
“It depends on the phone,” Blank said. “Some people do banking on their phone. Some phones cache information.”
That means some phones keep data in their memory to make it easier to access information in the future.
“Lots of times, in that cached information is secure information,” Blank said. Even innocuous information like the name and phone number or email address of a person’s mother can help out a potential thief.
Javelin’s report shows smart phone owners have higher incidents of fraud and more money is stolen than average. It notes that “smart phone owners who suffered from fraud had a mean fraud amount of $1,547 and a mean consumer cost of $329, compared to $1,513 and $354 respectively of all fraud victims.”
Beyond that, the report says smart phone owners who are fraud victims are 25% less likely to know how their information was stolen. The report indicates that may be due to owners’ “affinity for technology.”
Smart phone users who click on new applications may open themselves up to thieves. Those who install apps on their phones have a fraud rate of 6.8 percent, and people who frequently install new apps are 14.9 percent more likely to be fraud victims, the report said.
Blank described a scam in China, where smart phone users installed what was supposed to be a security application. Instead, he said, it installed a program that would wake up at 2 a.m. when most people are asleep and dial premium SMS numbers — similar to a 900 number — multiple times.
“It would hang up your phone and then it would erase the log of those phone numbers,” he said. “You didn’t realize it until you got your bill.”
People who use Facebook or LinkedIn are also at higher risk. Blank explained that a clever fraudster can use those sites to learn date of birth, where someone went to high school, and through checking out a person’s friends, can learn the name of an uncle — leading to the maiden name of his or her mother. That’s all information a bank would want if a thief wants to transfer money.
Blank said an “astonishing” number of people accept Facebook invites from people they don’t know, opening themselves up to fraud.
Hackers have been downloading bulk files from sites that, over the last year, included CitiBank and Lucky, to name just two. People whose information is stolen usually get what Blank called a breach letter. Those letters generally tell a consumer that they have nothing to worry about.
Not so, Blank said.
As of 2011, he said, “you are nine-and-a-half times more likely to be a fraud victim than anyone who has never received a letter.”
That’s up from six times more likely in 2010; four times more likely in 2009; and three times more likely in 2008.
“These are very, very, very important items in the industry,” Blank said. “Consumers believe these letters. They think everything is going to be fine.”
Account takeovers — in which a thief will get personal information and change a password blocking the owner from accessing her or his account — have seen a 12.6 percent increase since 2010.
Although most fraudsters prefer to go online or use a phone, some still brave surveillance videos and store security to make their illegal purchases in person.
A Hayward man was arrested last July when a search of his home netted several stolen pieces of mail from residents in the San Ramon Valley and parts of Alameda County. Personal information from the mail, as well as several checks, was used to pay bills and open fraudulent credit cards. That investigation began when a Danville resident reported that several pieces of mail had been stolen from her mailbox, said Sgt. Allan Shields.
On August 4, 2011, Detectives from the Northern California Computer Crimes Task Force and Pleasanton Police Department arrested Akash Sharma at his home on 10 counts of Identity Theft and three counts of commercial burglary. A search of Sharma’s residence revealed items purchased with stolen credit cards in the cities of Walnut Creek, Pleasanton and San Ramon.
The arrest came after a month-long investigation by the Pleasanton Police Department, Walnut Creek Police Department, Livermore Police Department and the Northern California Computer Crimes Task Force. Sharma is believed to be responsible for entering businesses in Contra Costa, Alameda, Santa Clara and San Joaquin Counties, stealing personal items from those business’ employees and then using those victim’s credit cards to purchase over $40,000.00 in jewelry, clothing and electronics.
Although the number of identity thefts is up by about 11 percent, according to the report, the amount stolen has trended steadily downward to $1,513 in 2011, from just over $3,000 in 2014. Police are catching fraudsters more quickly, too, resolving cases in about 12 hours in 2011 as opposed to 18 hours in 2004.
