Thursday, April 23, 2015

IRS Battling Identity Theft: People Losing their Returns to Hackers and Scammers Dan Geibler

            Identity theft, the taking of someone’s personal information and identity fraud, the false use of someone’s personal information, are both rapidly growing crimes in the US. While finding new ways to get your information, perpetrators have found a new way to use your information. With the recent past of Tax Day, the IRS has caught on to an increase in criminal identity cloning, where perpetrators access the forms the victim’s file, and alter their info to steal their return checks.
A Fox Article recently reported a Milwaukee woman who caught on to scammers, after they made an error in their ruse. Joy Krowski, the victim, received a letter from the IRS asking her for more info to process her tax return. The letter was official and from the actual IRS, however, it read, “Inquiring about your 1040 EZ form”, which was where the mistake was made. Joy realized there was some type of mistake because she didn’t file a 1040 EZ form. Joy called the IRS to try and solve her problems, when they realized she was a victim of identity fraud.
Joy’s social security number was compromised, and it was believed she was hacked. It’s believed that hackers are getting personal information though data branches, and getting it in large numbers, allowing them to mass produce false files and tax forms. Joy told reports when she was at the police station filing her police report, three other people came in to also report identity theft.

Joy said she was a victim of the Blue Cross Information Breach, however it’s unknown whether the other three victims were also. The Blue Cross incident opens the possibilities that the tax return victim’s information were sold on the black market. The theft and in this case was a little different from most identity theft cases. Like all cases, this will take Joy time and money to repair, having to go through numerous repetitive bureaucratic agencies to straighten out her taxes, get her proper refund, and get a new social security number, as well as reverivying information with her previous number. However, outside the norm, Joy and other victims most likely lost or would have lost over $400 if they forfeited their entire tax return, and it took more then 24 hours to realize the theft occurred.

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