identity-theft

Feds Stole a Woman's Identity and Made a Fake Facebook Page for Her

Andy Cush · 10/07/14 11:30AM

Search "Sondra Price" on Facebook and you'll find a profile for the woman shown above. From the information that's publicly displayed, you'll learn a few things about her: She went to Watertown High School, she drives a BMW, her nickname is "Sosa," and judging by one picture, she might have young children.

'Dumb' Identity Thief Hands Waitress Her Own Stolen ID Card

Neetzan Zimmerman · 03/07/13 11:50AM

Applebee's waitress Brianna Priddy never expected to encounter her stolen driver's license again, much less in her own restaurant after having it handed to her by a customer who turned out to be the person who stole it in the first place.

Police Bust Biggest Identity Theft Ring Ever in Queens

Adrian Chen · 10/07/11 02:48PM

The Queens DA office announced today that more than 100 people have been busted in a massive identity theft ring. The defendants are charged with stealing more than $13 million over 16 months, starting in 2010.

Miss USA Contestant Confesses to Identity Theft

Max Read · 05/15/11 01:35PM

The state of Wisconsin was deeply disgraced over the weekend as its foremost representative, Miss Wisconsin USA, admitted to identity theft. Shaletta Porterfield, who worked at a marketing company last summer, told police that she forged the signatures of clients in order to meet her commission goals. She likely won't see any jail time (according to her lawyer, she didn't benefit monetarily from her actions, and stopped working at the firm in August), but she will have live with the knowledge that she brought deep and abiding shame upon the Miss USA pageant. [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel via NYDN]

Ex-Government Informant Hacker Gets 20 Years in Jail

Jeff Neumann · 03/26/10 07:31AM

The man behind the largest series of identity thefts in US history, Albert Gonzalez, has been sent to prison for ripping off 40 million credit card numbers, mostly from TJ Maxx. His Asperger's syndrome excuse didn't work in court. [FT]

Terrorist Threat of the Day: The Yonkers DMV

John Cook · 02/24/10 03:34PM

There's a reason everyone at the DMV treats you like shit: You're not paying them $7,000! For that nominal sum, customers at the Yonkers, N.Y., DMV—even Pakistanis on the no-fly list—could get licenses based on stolen identities.

Identity Thieves Get the Gift of a Lifetime

cityfile · 05/08/09 08:21AM

Does the name "Frenkel Lambert Weiss Weisman & Gordon" mean anything to you? No? Excellent. Feel free to move along. But if the name rings a bell because it happens to be the name of a law firm you've worked with the past, you may want to call another law firm right now since you're probably going to need a new lawyer to sue your old lawyer. It seems Frenkel Lambert filled up 61 dumpsters worth of client files—including medical records, social security numbers, addresses and the like—and dumped it on the street. Identity thieves were naturally quite pleased to see the sensitive info materialize downtown; when a Daily News reporter arrived on the scene yesterday, "several passersby were digging through the mountain of paper." Frenkel Lambert says it is now investigating the incident. In the meantime, we'll just have to there's a connection between this mishap and the "Code Shred" truck that was spotted around the corner early this morning. [NYDN, Dealbreaker]

Your Identity is Fluttering in the Wind

cityfile · 01/28/09 07:49AM

Hope you didn't rent an apartment on the Upper West Side using a broker from Citi Habitats. Thousands of pages of bank statements, credit reports, tax returns and driver's licenses were discovered along Columbus Avenue afternoon yesterday, just waiting to be picked up by would-be identity thieves (and Eyewitness News reporter NJ Burkett, of course). Citi Habitats says the document dump occurred "during a refurbishing" of the company's offices at 465 Columbus Avenue. Feel free to recycle that excuse when your bank calls to inquire about the 27 flat-screen TVs purchased in your name at the Best Buy in Paramus. [ABC7 via TRD]

The BBC creates a Facebook app to steal identities

Nicholas Carlson · 05/02/08 11:20AM

In order to demonstrate how easy it would be for an malicious developer to create an application that steals private information from Facebook users, BBC television series Click created such an application themselves. Then they set up some spooky lighting and filmed a dude using two computers. "ID theft is a serious matter," the narrator intones. Check it out in the clip.

"Data Security Incident" Rocks MTV! 5,000 Staffers Exposed!

Pareene · 03/07/08 05:56PM

Catherine Houser, MTV Networks Executive VP for Human Resources, sent an email out to 5,000 MTV employees alerting them that because "the computer of one of our MTVN colleagues was compromised.... files containing some confidential information about you were illegally accessed by someone outside the Company." Hope you weren't using that Social Security number and decent credit rating, sport: "The personal information that was accessed included names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and compensation data." Now some criminal knows how much you don't make! How many of the affected were among the 1,000 permalancers bumped up to staff in January, we wonder? Full email with all the grisly details attached. Pray for rock and roll.