Identity Thieves Not Big On Technology

alphadogg sends us to Network World, as is his wont, for a summary of a new study of identity theft based on the outcomes of more than 500 Secret Service cases from 2000 to 2006. Here is the study report (PDF). The AP has coverage emphasizing other slants on the findings. Among the surprises: just 51% of convicted ID thieves were sent to prison. Only 20% of the cases involved use of the Internet, and such cases may be on the decline. More perpetrators used good old-fashioned dumpster diving and stealing stuff out of mailboxes.

Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics...

[hchaos]

From the AP article: "The Federal Trade Commission has said about 3 million Americans have their identities stolen annually." And this study covers 517 cases over 7 years (2000-2006). I'm sorry, but I can't see a study of 517 cases during a period of approx. 21 million crimes providing really useful data.

The 99% margin of error on this study is about 5.5% (e.g. there is a 99% chance that the real percentages are within 5.5 points of the reported percentages). If the sample size were 1000, we would see a margin of error of 4%, and a we'd need a sample size of 10,000 to give us a 1.2% margin of error. One of the things that you learn if you ever take a statistics course is that, regardless of your actual population, you just don't get much better results when your sample size increases beyond a few hundred.

Happened to me Yesterday!

[ender-]

Interesting timing on this article. Just last night, my wife and I got a call from Discover, asking if we had attempted to use our Discover card recently. It just so happens that the ONLY thing this card is [well, was] used for, was the recurring monthly cost of XM Radio. Other than that, we don't use the card at all.

It turns out that at 9:24PM EDT last night, someone tried to buy $986 worth of crap at a Walmart in Jacksboro, TN. I live in Dallas. So it was definitely not myself or my wife. Thankfully, the charge was declined. Someone had also made a whopping $2.51 purchase at some online computer store which I had never heard of. I don't know what kind of nothing they bought, but that usually wouldn't even cover shipping.

What we think happened is this. Our current cards are set to expire at the end of this month. We both still have our cards, so most likely, someone snagged my replacement card out of the mail. Discover says they did send out replacement cards, but we never got them. I'm still trying to figure out where the cards were mailed from, to see if it was somewhere near TN.

I'm guessing this thief isn't too bright. I'm think they weren't able to actually activate the card, which is why it was declined at Walmart. It may have gone through at the computer site because the card number is the same as my active card, and perhaps they don't ask for the 3 digit verification number on the back.

At this point, I'm working with the Walmart in question to have them save their security tapes on all the registers at that time. I'm also trying to get in touch with the online computer store to see if they have records on where the item was shipped. I'll give that info to the fraud group at Discover and hope for the best.

Even though it hasn't actually cost me any money, I want to nail that punk to a tree. Now we have to deal with having our account closed and switched to a new account. We take reasonable precautions to keep ourselves, safe, but you just can't protect mail you haven't even received yet.