Posted on 02/10/2013 4:18:36 AM PST by Timber Rattler
Air National Guard Maj. Zane Purdy was making more than $100,000 a year working for a defense contracting company when his identity was stolen and sold to a tax fraud ring.
Now, Purdy makes $7.25 an hour at a Krystal restaurant in Trussville to support his two children.
“It has been a struggle, and it has been very damaging,” the former Montgomery resident said of the identity theft, which has left him thousands of dollars in debt and fighting to clear his credit report.
U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson on Wednesday sentenced Angeline Austin, 41, of Montgomery to 65 months in federal prison for stealing the identities of Purdy and hundreds of others by accessing a Troy hospital database.
(snip)
Austin worked for Southern Records Management at Troy Regional Medical Center between June 13, 2010, and March 25, 2011, court records state.
The job gave her access to the personal information of current and former patients, including names, Social Security numbers and dates of birth.
Austin stole the personal information of more than 800 patients and sold it for between $6,500 and $8,000, evidence presented during the trial showed.
The identities were used to file fraudulent tax returns and collect false tax refunds in a stolen identity ring officials said was responsible for the theft of about $1.6 million in taxpayer money.
(snip)
The scheme was carried out with the help of “collusive employees, security guards and U.S. postal delivery personnel,” Secret Service Resident Agent in Charge Clayton Slay said. He added Montgomery is in the top 10 of U.S. cities with the highest incidence of stolen identities being used in tax fraud.
(Excerpt) Read more at stripes.com ...
Here’s the thing....the banks and credit card companies know it’s a massive problem, and want nothing to do with the solution. They’d like for everything to just continue on.
You don’t have this problem in Germany. You have a national ID card that you have to produce each time you want to register for a bank account. You have to register each time you move, and identify your new address. Your social security number is not what tracks you. German banks absolutely don’t want to deal with fraud episodes...it’s a waste of time and money.
Here we have idiots who are demanding a universal back-ground check for buying ammo or guns, but they won’t allow the same universal back-ground check for voter registration or credit card application or bank account registration.
marked for later
Fraud is a huge “cottage industry” for financial institutions, and won’t be fixed anytime soon.
Political power comes out of the barrel of a gun. The other stuff is there to keep you dependent and in a state of helplessness.
His security clearance was suspended, and he lost his job with General Dynamics. He also is blocked from active duty with the Air National Guard while his security clearance is suspended.
“In my 18 years in the service, I never (previously) had an issue with my security clearance,” Purdy said.
OK, quick note here, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), aka ObamaCare, both increases the use of health databases and tracking info of all Americans AND does little, if anything, for increasing security for the same.
This is one of the areas where that infamous phrase in the unread 2000+ page bill says "The Secretary (HHS) shall ..., thus divorcing the Congress from responsibility and concern. REMEMBER, Congress is NOT covered under PPACA because their health plan is paid for by their grateful constituents, the taxpayers!
Word to the wise based on my decade of tax preparer experience. If you do not use or have a middle name or initial (MI), do what you have to do to create one. The MI is used far more frequently than you can imagine to differentiate between persons with same names. A relative easy thing can save headaches down the road!
national ID card..
register when you move and where you live...
track your everyday life...
are we back in the 1930’s pre war germany???
The article studiously avoids mentioning Austin’s race.
65 months?? Perp needs to be thankful he/she didn’t do something truly dastardly like trim the victim’s beard.
Makes one think.
65 months?? Perp needs to be thankful he/she didn’t do something truly dastardly like trim the victim’s beard.
Makes one think.
What we need to do is start hanging identity thieves.
I recently signed up for a 14 day trial at ancestry.com.
Imagine my surprise when I pulled up information on a deceased brother in law and saw his entire social security number is right there on the record from Social Security Death Index.
I’ve found a lot of my deceased family records but that is the first one I’ve seen that has the SS # on it.
We protect our social security numbers as best we can and a government agency puts them out there for anyone to see. They have no importance to a person’s family history so why haven’t they been deleted?
I know! Today there aren’t any answers to our many “why” questions!
>>If you didn’t do something like open a credit card account, apply for a loan etc . . . and someone claims you did and it damages you, SUE THEM! <<
Are you normally this stoopid or is this over the top of what you can comprehend? IDENTITY THEFT is what the issue is here. Your ID is stolen.... YOU have to prove that YOU DIDN’T TAKE OUT THE LOAN, ETC. If you cannot prove that, then YOU go down in flames, not the fictitious person you are claiming took out the loan.
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