Elaine Silvetrini reports: Four Bulgarian men put “skimmers” on ATM machines at SunTrust banks in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties last summer and obtained identifying information on hundreds of bank accounts, according to a federal complaint. The information was used to withdraw nearly $200,000 from the compromised accounts. Federal authorities have arrested one of the suspects…
Category: U.S.
UT: Payment card skimmer secretly planted in gas station pump
Dan Goodin reports on yet another skimming operation involving a gas station, this one in Utah: It was discovered in late January at a 7-Eleven in Sandy, Utah. Police said it may have been actively monitoring transactions for as long as 60 days. It resulted in losses of more than $11,000. Read more in The…
22 charged in NY identity fraud ring
Authorities announced charges Tuesday against 22 people involved in an alleged identity theft ring. Seven of them, including two New York City-based employees of the Department of Motor Vehicles, allegedly sold more than 200 New York state driver’s licenses and other identification documents in stolen identities, netting more than $1 million. In addition, 15 customers…
Nine Georgia defendents sentenced to prison for ID theft
Viola Hill, 61, of Atlanta, Georgia, and Adolphus Hill, 64, of Atlanta, Georgia, were sentenced Friday as the final two defendants sentenced this week in a large scale fraud scheme using identity and check thefts. Coconspirators Calvin Hill, 61, Frank Mitchell, 61, James McCarter, 51, Karen Clark, 61, Carlos Jennings, 36, and Tequillia Hamilton, 35,…
Equifax offers employees free Equifax credit monitoring after SSN exposed in mailing gaffe
After Equifax recently sent out IRS W-2 statements to most of its current employees and some former employees, they discovered that some employees’ control ID numbers were partially or completely viewable in the return address window of the envelope used by the payroll vendor. In an unspecified number of cases for U.S. employees, the control…
Widespread Data Breaches Uncovered by FTC Probe
The Federal Trade Commission has notified almost 100 organizations that personal information, including sensitive data about customers and/or employees, has been shared from the organizations’ computer networks and is available on peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks to any users of those networks, who could use it to commit identity theft or fraud. The agency also has…