Inexcusable Negligence

APRPEH ^ | 27 Nisan 5768/2 May 2008 | APRPEH

[APRPEH]

(from Laptop Security blog)

Even the most carefully laid plans can go awry. Federal prosecutors charged a Southern Californian woman this week with aggravated identity theft after she used a genealogy website to locate people who had recently died and to take over their credit cards.

Tracy June Kirkland was using Rootsweb.com to find the names, Social Security numbers and birth dates of people who had died. She would then call credit card companies randomly to see if "she" had an account, if "she" did, she would request a mailing address change and, in some cases, would add her own name as an authorized user. Ms. Kirkland repeated this scheme at least 100 times between October, 2005 and last month.

[APRPEH]

I could see how someone with access to the Social Security Numbers of recently deceased could be successful attempting this sort of fraud. But with consumers who passed away 2 or 3 years ago, there is no excuse for credit issuers to have not updated their electronic records. more

[Captain Rhino]

Thanks for your post. Another thing to be aware of.

Interesting webpage too. I had no idea Masada is as large a complex as the photograph shows it to be.

[APRPEH]

thank you

[oh8eleven]

I recently completed my own genealogy project and subscribed to "Ancestry.com." One of their search features returns info from the Social Security Death Index including name, last residence, dates of birth & death and SS#.
Quite frankly, I was shocked to see the SS# included and I wondered how many had been "stolen" for illegal purposes.