Center Streamlines Identity-Theft Reporting

[DocDon]

Center Streamlines Identity-Theft Reporting

Program Aimed To Boost Consumer Confidence

WASHINGTON October 28, 2003-- The head of the Federal Trade Commission called identity theft a "devastating crime" and is praising a new program that might help consumers fight back.

About 100 financial institutions announced that they have banded together to create the Identity Theft Assistance Center. Victims of identity theft can alert banks, credit-card companies and law enforcement with just one phone call.

This means victims only have to tell their story once, beginning with their primary financial institution. Once issues are resolved at that institution, with the customer's consent, the information will be sent on to the new center.

The process is designed to benefit consumers by relieving the stress and wasted hours they must currently spend reporting cases of fraud.

"Identity theft is the fastest-growing type of white-collar crime, and one that currently places too high a burden on our customers both in terms of lost financial identity and the time it can take to restore their good names," said Steve Bartlett, president of the Financial Services Roundtable.

The move is aimed at restoring consumer confidence. An FTC survey found nearly 10 million Americans had money stolen from their bank accounts or said that credit cards or other documents were falsely registered under their names.

The FTC also estimates that identity theft costs consumers and businesses $53 billion last year.

Dozens of companies will be participating in the program, including credit-card giants like Bank One, Citigroup and MBNA. The pilot program would start in May 2004, with Wells Fargo & Co.

[kb9tbq]

That is interesting, but I would still caution to go the other route none the less. It is always in a consumers best interest to investigate the matter personally and to keep up with the progress as it goes along.

Like you said - only 100 participating creditors... meaning that the word is not out and until then there are so many others that are going to expect things to be done the old way of filing police reports / activating fraud alert / filing disputes / and completing affidavits.

Also very important is that each persons case is different to the next. Like in one case a person might need to contact DMV because of a stolen drivers license, or in another case a person needs to contact the post master for stolen mail.

Or contact another direction for warrents falsely having been filed against them for someone elses mis-deeds. Another not common every day problem is like fraud involving stocks, or bankruptcy having been filed using a victims social security number.

I know the FTC finally getting the picture of the scope of the problem, but they just can meet the problem as they claim, it is bigger then they could ever accomplish getting a handle on that is for sure. Especially when some fraud cases are under the jurisdiction of the Secret Service and other such groups.

Another sad fact is when it comes to educating consumers they have failed terribly! I would bet that a good percentage of fraud cases reproted - where not even fraud - but instead mixed or split files where by clerical error someone elses credit information show up on their credit report, but no actual fraud was involved.

Until they can explain themselves in this matter as to what all the steps are they will be covering for the consumer - I would not recommend relying solely on this to get past ID Theft problems.

Thanks Doc for that artical that was most interesting - and I would be more then happy to see them prove me wrong!

[DocDon]

Like anything new, there's bound to be problems initially. This is long overdue, and hopefully the process will become as easy as intiating a dispute online is today. We'll see. At least they're trying to do something about it. Of course, the only reason it's gotten this far is the creditors have lost a lot of money in fraudulent transactions....