GDA Action September 2019

20 • September 2019 THE PRACTICE Continued from page 19 types of fraud their investigators saw were new credit account, utilities, and new cell phone fraud. Less frequently are people stealing your wallet and using your old accounts. They are stealing your Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and opening up new accounts that you don’t know about. One early sign that you may have been a victim of new credit account fraud is receiving a ‘denial of credit’ letter. When a thief tries to open a new credit account and there is incomplete, unverifiable or incorrect information the creditor is required by law to provide a notice of denial. If you receive a denial of credit letter for an account you did not attempt to open, do not take this as a sign that there was a simple error or that since it was denied your information is safe. What it means is that someone has your PII and will likely attempt again to open new credit. It is important to check your mail to make sure you are not receiving bills or statements for accounts you did not open. Another red herring is receiving a change of address verification from the USPS if you have not moved. Identity theft thieves want to hide their activity for a long as possible and if they can re-route your mail their theft will go undetected for longer. A late sign of ID theft is seeing hard inquiries or new unauthorized accounts on your credit report. Utilities Fraud is when someone uses you name or PII to obtain water, gas, cable or phone services. Many utility companies use your name and SSN to open up utility services in your name. Often they do not inquire of the 3 credit bureaus before opening an account. This means credit alerts and freezes may not be effective in preventing this type of fraud. Victims of utility and new cell phone fraud often find out their information was compromised and used when they receive collections letters or bills from companies where they are not customers. As much as traditional mail may seem antiquated it is important to open you mail and verify that you are not receiving bills, statements, or denial of credit letters that may be indicators of Identity theft. For utility companies, if you provide a bill from the utility company that you do receive services from and that bill coincides with the time of the fraud the issue may be resolved. While your PII can still be obtained by gaining access to your physical documents, identification cards, or mail, by far the new and more efficient way to obtain your PII is through data breaches. Criminals are less likely to grab your bag or dumpster dive to retrieve your information but more likely to be sitting at a computer hacking into the information that is already stored in someone’s data bank about you. Many of us have received breach notifications from banks, health care providers, and credit card companies that offer temporary identity theft protection plans when their system was compromised. That is a warning sign that your PII may be at risk. The issue with this approach is that monitoring your information for 12–24 months is short sighted. If your PII is in the hands of a thief they are likely to use it over and over again for many years to come. Many plans offer monitoring with little to no restoration. This means that you become the victim twice when you have to navigate the steps needed to restore your identity on your own time and dime. The best approach is both proactive and long term. LegalShield’s IDShield services are endorsed by the Georgia Dental Association. They provide comprehensive monitoring, restoration and licensed private investigators to help dental practices, staff and Dentists protect their identity. When you become knowledgeable about how to best protect your identity that can translate to the dental office staff becoming more knowledgable about how to protect the identity of their patients.