It was announced on Tuesday the final results of a huge national sweep used to crack down on suspected identity theft perpetrators.  This is a part of effort that has been stepped up against identity theft and refund fraud.  The two departments that conducted this sweep were the Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service.  Working together along with the local U.S. Attorney’s Office this giant sweep targeted in twenty-three states a total of one hundred five people last week and was from coast-to-coast.

There were executions of search warrants, arrests, and indictments included in the sweep involving the potential theft of several thousand taxpayer refunds and of identities stolen.  All total there were nine hundred thirty nine criminal charges in the sixty-nine indictments and information that was related to identity theft.

Investigators and auditors from the IRS also conducted long compliance visits in nine locations across the United States to check-cashing businesses during that same time frame.  The officials make about one hundred fifty visits to help make sure these check-cashing businesses were not facilitating identity theft and refund fraud.

The IRS and the Justice Department are working together to not only investigate but also to prosecute and punish any type of tax refund criminal act that was committed using the theft of someone else’s identity.  The IRS is also increasing its internal reviews in order to spot tax returns that are frauds before they issue a tax refund and to help any of the people who have been victims of identity theft tax refund schemes.

This sweep that was done reflects on investigative efforts that go back months and in some cases, even years.

This type of scam can take on my variations.  It could be someone is offering to pay you for a service or to buy an item that you advertised for sale.  There may even be an offer that promises an “advance” on some sweepstakes that you have supposed to have won, or to pay for the first installment on the millions of dollars you are going to receive for agreeing to have money from a foreign country transferred into your bank account for safekeeping.

In most instances of fake check scams the one doing the scam will request that you to send money back to them in some way.  What they will do is send you a check for goods or services for more than the amount that is requested.  They will tell you to go ahead and deposit their check and then you are to wire them back the additional money.

In some instances, the scammer will ask you to wire them money for processing, legal fees, taxes, shipping, or any number of other expenses that you are going to have to pay before you will receive your reward or money.  The checks that the scammers will send you will feel and look real no matter if they are a cashier’s check or a personal check.  These checks have even been known to fool a bank teller.  These checks could have been written fraudulently or may be from a legitimate corporation or business.

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Over the weekend, the online shoe retailer Zappos informed their customers that they had been a victim of a cyber attack.  This cyber attack affected more than twenty-four million customers.  Zappos is owned by Amazon.com and is based in Las Vegas, Nevada.  They have stated that these twenty-four million customers have had their email addresses, their names, their billing and shipping addresses, their phone numbers, scrambled passwords, and the last four numbers of their credit cards were hacked.

Although this sounds really bad for the customers, there is one piece of good news.  The hackers were not able to access servers that had the customer’s payment data, including their total critical credit card number.  The retailer has stated that the hacker managed to gain access to parts of their internal systems and network.  The hacker managed to do this via one of the servers in Kentucky.  This was posted Sunday on Zappos blog.

It is the recommendation that all their customers, not just the twenty-four million who were affected, that they change their password. In addition, they should also do this on any site where they used a similar or same password to protect any other accounts they might have.

Because of their huge customer data base and all the calls they are expecting because of this data breach, they have switched off their telephones temporarily.  They are asking that all customers contact the company via email.

This type of scam is when someone calls you claiming that they are from your credit card company and asks you to confirm personal information.  This could be anything from your credit card number, the security code from the back of the card, or even your mother’s name.  If you give the caller any of this information after the call is over the caller will take the information and start making charges on your account.  This identity theft may even create a new account in your name.  Sometime these identity thieves or scammers will even leave a number on your answering machine or in an email to get you to call them.

If you should get a phone call of this type make sure that you do not give out any information even if they sound legitimate for the simple reason is that you did not initiate the call.  Some of these scammers are so smart that they can even have your credit card company’s number show up on the caller ID by spoofing your caller ID.  Only trust calls that you make by using the number on the billing statement or on the back of your credit card.  If you get any numbers in an email or left on your answering machine that you do not know do not call them back and give them any personal information.

Call your credit card company immediately if you mistakenly give out your personal information.  The credit card company may give you a new credit card number or even a new credit card and deactivate the old one to prevent fraudulent charges from being made on your account.
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There are so many identity theft scams that it would take a long time to list them all and each day there seem to be even more.  When it comes to identity theft scams the scammer will use a variety of “hooks” to get you to fall for their scam.  Those hooks can include “you have won a prize”, “you are being considered for a great job”, or “someone died and left you a fortune.”  Here are just some of the many identity theft scams that are making their rounds.

The Lottery Winner

In this scam you will either receive a phone call or a letter telling you that you have won some foreign lottery that you do not even remember entering.  This should be the first red flag.  They then proceed to tell you that all they need is your address and name to make the check out too and for tax purposes they are going to need your Social Security number.  What this identity theft scammer is hoping is that the person they contacted is greedy enough to let them in the front door, so to speak and be able to steal your personal information.
You are Hired

You know that you have put your resume on various online job-seeking websites but have not been interviewed nor offered a job so how can you be ready to be hired.  When the company calls you to let you know that they would love to hire you for a fabulous position.  They fax you tax forms and a job application and all you have to do is fill them, return them, and you get the job.  Unfortunately this company is also asking you for personal information.  This should give you some indication that it is very possible that this is a scammer or identity thief and you should not give them any personal information.
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