Seminar Urges Caution to Avoid Identity Theft

December 23, 2011

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FORT GEORGE G. MEADE, Md., Dec. 22 -- The U.S. Army issued the following news release:
Some Fort Meade residents and employees may be crime victims and not know it.
More than 60 identity theft reports have been filed with the Fort Meade Police Department since April, said Russell Wilson, Fort Meade's chief criminal investigator.
It is one of the reasons why the Directorate of Emergency Services organized a seminar about how to prevent and recover from identity theft on Dec. 14 at the Post Theater. The average identity theft report on Fort Meade is between $600 and $1,800, said Wilson.

This is the seminar and workshop I give on Identity Theft.  Read More




The Federal Trade Commission estimates that nine million Americans have their identities stolen each year. It believes more people are victims but do not know it until they review their credit report or credit card statement, or receive a collection notice.
"Identity theft is basically using personal identification information that is unique to a person for illegal means," said Keith Gethers, a certified identity theft risk-management specialist, who was one of two presenters at the seminar. "We typically associate that with name, Social Security number, address and credit card number."
While anyone can potentially have his identity stolen, thieves target certain types of people such as military personal, said Gethers. "[Identity thieves] pay attention to levels of deployment," he said.
Social media users, including service members and their families, who post too detailed information are putting themselves at risk of identity theft, said Gethers.
"[Thieves] work [social media] in terms of intelligence information," he said. "Some people put on when they're going on vacation and everything. So deployments [are] just a small part of that. We have to be vigilant about what information is out there and what we share."
Hacking and social media impersonation also are methods identity thieves use, said Gethers.
"They'll go [on] Facebook or something like that and pretend to be you," he said, "and it's really attached to things that we wouldn't think of as identity theft, but the end result might result in something like bullying ... by putting something outlandish on [the Internet] that might make [the victim] the target of other people."
There is no federal law against Internet impersonation, said Bridgette Harwood, a victims' rights attorney, who also spoke at the seminar. However, California and New York do have state laws that criminalize Internet impersonation.
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