Valuable Assistance to Consumers Affected by Identity Theft Offered by Award-Winning Non-Profit Institute of Consumer Financial Education and Global Fraud Solutions
“Consumers across the nation can expect to be bombarded with offers to sign up for credit monitoring services, identity theft prevention services, identity theft insurance, or other programs and services of limited value by companies aimed solely at profiting from the situation. Don’t get scammed again,” warned Paul Richard, RFC, executive director of the award winning Institute of Consumer Financial Education (ICFE) based in San Diego, CA.
San Diego, CA (PRWEB) February 25, 2005 -- Have you received a letter from
ChoicePoint, a specialty consumer reporting organization that compiles and sells
vast amounts of records, many of a highly confidential and sensitive nature,
about millions of Americans? If you do, the letter will tell you and about
150,000 other consumers that you are one of their choicest, however unfortunate,
record holders, because some of your most personal and private information was
purchased from ChoicePoint by identity thieves, who duped them in the
credentialing process.
Notification letters are being prepared by
ChoicePoint, Inc., for mailing to some 35,000 Californians and an additional
110,000 recipients in other states. Some consumer advocates worry that there is
potentially an additional unknown multitude, maybe hundreds of thousands, still
to be determined across the country who have been victimized and don’t know it
yet.
If you are among the thousands of ChoicePoint victims or receive a
similar letter, will you know what to do? Who will you turn to for advice and
help?
“Consumers across the nation can expect to be bombarded with
offers to sign up for credit monitoring services, identity theft prevention
services, identity theft insurance, or other programs and services of limited
value by companies aimed solely at profiting from the situation. Don’t get
scammed again,” warned Paul Richard, RFC, executive director of the award
winning Institute of Consumer Financial Education (ICFE) based in San Diego, CA.
“It's very upsetting and a seemingly insurmountable challenge for
unsuspecting consumers to suddenly learn their most personal and private
information may have been sent out to crooks, especially by a company,
ChoicePoint, that many didn’t even know existed," Richard noted. "ChoicePoint
began as a subsidiary of Equifax in 1997, one of the big three credit reporting
agencies. ChoicePoint has about 19 billion public records in its database
including DMV, license and deed transfers, military records, names, addresses
and social security numbers." he continued.
ChoicePoint has also
announced they are providing free credit-monitoring services to those 145,000
individuals it deems to be at-risk. Expensive credit monitoring services that
don’t even monitor specialty report companies like ChoicePoint aren’t very
useful. Most only monitor a single credit bureau anyhow. The monitoring service
also does not address the task ahead for victims.
Identity theft
insurance is not really insurance because as the ChoicePoint incident clearly
points out it is virtually impossible to prevent or insure against this
crime. In this case identity theft insurance, available on some homeowner
policies, may help victims recover some of the expense involved in clearing
their good name, but it will certainly not reduce the time and hassle.
Many companies who offer identity theft prevention and assistance
services have already indicated the ChoicePoint incident would be considered a
“pre-existing condition”, so signing up for their services now would be of
little, if any, value to the at-risk consumer.
The ICFE has alerted its
nationwide network consisting of hundreds of Certified Credit Report Reviewers
and Identity Theft Prevention Specialists on how to assist consumers in
prevention and help the potential victims of the ChoicePoint breach. They are
trained in mitigating the serious damage that can and does occur in cases of
identity theft.
The ICFE is also introducing its credit report reviewers
and ID prevention specialists to a revolutionary software program called
CasePlanner™, now available through and also utilized by the ICFE under a
special arrangement with Global Fraud Solutions, LLC, an international leader in
identity theft solutions. CasePlanner™ is a patent-pending identity theft risk
reduction and fraud resolution software package designed to address the needs of
both concerned consumers and victims of identity theft.
“The proverbial
tangled web of deception is uniquely manifested in each case of identity theft.
The gargantuan effort required to undo it is enough for 75 percent of the
victims to throw up their hands in disgust and give up, until CasePlanner™,"
said Richard. "First, there are no monthly fees. Second, it is so comprehensive
that users who are victims are assured of a faster, more complete identity and
credit recovery. And third, concerned consumers who want to guard against
identity theft and prevent it from happening as much as possible will find
CasePlanner™ to be an enormous advantage,” said Richard, commenting on the ease
of using the program.
There are many web sites that can help consumers
understand the process of documenting and reporting their identity theft case.
But it is still the victim's responsibility to discover how that information
should be reported, to document their case for each organization they are
working with, and then follow up with each of those organizations until the case
has been closed. Working with a professionally trained and qualified individual
is critical in identity theft cases.
CasePlanner™ provides many powerful
tools in the fight against identity theft: 1) An awareness and prevention guide
to help educate consumers how thieves gain their information and how to avoid
being victimized; 2) An encrypted personal account registry where consumers can
store their personal information enabling a rapid and decisive response in the
event these accounts are ever compromised; 3) An ID inventory to document and
record identification and financial instruments contained in their wallet,
purse, vehicle glove box, etc; and 4) An exclusive resolution case file system
that walks consumers step-by-step through the process of documenting, reporting,
and resolving their identity theft case if they are ever victimized.
For
more information about Credit Report Reviewers and Identity Theft Prevention
Specialists please visit www.icfe.info.
For more information about CasePlanner™
please visit www.icfe.info.
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/2/prweb212059.htm