Posted on 03/03/2008 6:20:57 PM PST by RKBA Democrat
RIP-OFF ALERT: The Berkeley Center for Law and Technology analyzed corporate America to see which companies have the highest incidence of ID theft. The No. 1 company? Bank of America. BoA is the nation's second largest bank. (If you look at the numbers based on total customer base, BoA then actually comes in second behind HSBC). AT&T occupies the second slot, followed by Sprint (No. 3), JPMorgan Chase (No. 4) and Capital One (No. 5). Think about it: 3 of the first 5 are banks, which is understandable. But why are two phone companies way up there? The reason is because they do a credit check when you apply for phone service, and open yourself up as a potential target when they get your info. In the No. 6 spot, we have Citibank. As the nation's largest bank, Citibank has one-third less incidences of ID theft than the smaller BoA! Verizon, American Express, Washington Mutual and Wells-Fargo all round out the top ten. View the complete list online at the Berkeley site.
Now the inevitable question: Why do these institutions have high rates of ID theft? Clark speculates that it must have to do with the way they internally handle your information. Interestingly, the bank with the lowest incidence of ID theft is ING Direct. You would think they'd be up at the top of the list since they're Internet only. But being a newer bank, they've been dealing with outsmarting ID thieves since they launched. It's much tougher for a legacy financial institution to retroactively patch good protection into systems that were built decades ago. ID theft has not grown significantly -- it still happens to about 10 million people a year -- but it's still a major issue. Finally, from the "no they didn't!" category, the New York City Department of Finance sent tax forms to 1000s that showed people's Social Security numbers through the envelope. C'mon people, this is 2008! Get with the program.
Also in shownotes:
Vanguard has a banner year in 2007
Behind the rising prices at the gas pump
Clark makes the jump to a Verizon plan
“Now the inevitable question: Why do these institutions have high rates of ID theft?”
Reminds me of how Willie Sutton answered the question of why he robs banks: “Because that’s where the money is.”
At my large financial institution, if you try to send an email containing an SSN it is intercepted and returned to you with a stern warning.
Just great, I have accounts with 3 of those.
Can one demand and under law are these companies after a certain period of time required to remove the credit check SSN info from their databases?
My electric company was required by Florida law to remove my credit check info and SSN from their data after a year of clean payment history.
What about the cell companies? After years of customer history they no longer need your personal SSN.
The fact that Bank of America is number one for identity theft doers not surprise me. I know someone who had a account with them and a younger relative of hers worked for the bank. When the older lady cut of the money (financial help) to the younger one, the younger one used the info she had and stole some of her money. She should have prosecuted the younger relative, but she didn’t. (I would have). I think all she did was change banks.
Must be the new Unlimited plan. Great for heavy talkers that travel nationally.
I had Worldnet until I started getting this message about transferring data from octoknot or something.
Online message boards said that AT&T is a shell that was packing its portfolio before a big sell and that the company that was transferring data had a Chinese IP.
I don’t know if any of this is true. But I dumped Worldnet anyway.
Who is “The Berkeley Center for Law and Technology” and why should believe what they say other than it fits what some want to believe?
My standard line for anytime any institution, doctor, etc wants my SSN is:
Are you going to be making payments into my Social Security account? If not, you don’t need the number.
It doesn’t surprise me either. A large percent of their mortgages in the last few years have been to people with fake, little or no ID. If they don’t care about the ID’s of new borrowers, what makes anyone think they’d be particularly careful about the ID’s of current depositors?
thanks..
Got link?
IMHO, you’re much better off dealing with a small local or regional bank.
That’s why BOA’s nickname is’ Bank of Amigos’ or ‘Bank of Illegals’.
You can go to your local Post Office and change someone else’s mailing address to yours by claming to be their relative.
No ID required. Just learned that today while overhearing an angry patron at my local PO. His adult daughter(20 yrs old) went and moved the whole family’s mail to her new address without dad’s consent or knowledge.
Nice, huh?
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