The AP reports:
Ohio’s attorney general and two state lawmakers are pushing for harsher penalties against scammers who commit identity fraud and other theft crimes against active-duty service members and their spouses.
The bill from Republican state Reps. Mike Dovilla and Terry Blair amends the current identity fraud and theft laws to increase penalties for those types of crimes against military families.
DeWine said in a statement Tuesday that identity fraud against the military is increasing in Ohio. It was up almost 20 percent last year. And DeWine said the proposed legislation would give Ohio one of the toughest laws in the country with respect to punishing identity fraud aimed at active-duty service members.
The proposed legislation also would allow identity fraud victims to pursue civil lawsuits against offenders.
I really dislike the notion that ID theft crimes targeting one group of people is somehow worse than ID theft targeting everyone else or other groups. What next? Do we have laws that consider it an aggravating factor if the victim has dementia, is in a nursing home, or is intellectually disabled? How about people who can’t read and therefore may not understand what it shows on their own credit card statements?
Rather than trying to increase the penalties for the crime or treating it as an aggravated crime, why doesn’t the military just provide all active service members with credit protection monitoring at no cost to the service members? Or why doesn’t Congress work with the financial sector to modify policies that give people only 30 days to report fraudulent charges on debit cards or they’re liable for them?
Heck, why don’t we ALL have that?