On the Ilyce Glink Show this morning, we were talking about identity theft and the good samaritans who are out there warning people that their social security numbers are on government websites as well as boards where ID information that has been stolen (social security numbers, credit card numbers, etc.) is posted for the taking.
USA Today reported last week on Steven Peisner, who runs www.sellitsafe.com, who calls people whose information has been stolen so they can take appropriate action to protect themselves from further harm. See the story about these ID Theft angels at http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:2vC1BWoCSmYJ:news.yahoo.com/news%3Ftmpl%3Dindex%26cid%3D711+steven+peisner+USA+Today&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1
Kevin, from Macon, GA, is a private investigator and called the show this morning to report that one of his favorite sites is www.rootsweb.com, where you can search for dead people’s social security information easily. Then, you can use that information to either apply for a credit card, or find information on people who are alive to steal their information.
We asked Kevin to come back in the 1pm hour of the show to talk further about what scares him about the information that’s available on the web. Here’s what he said, and you can listen to the interview at iTunes.com or on the www.thinkglink.com website — He said that the databases that are now coming out of foreign countries — because they would be illegal to operate in the U.S. — have all sorts of information that should scare us.
Someone is tracking our buying and return habits. The phone numbers we give when we buy stuff at retail stores. And, then they’re reselling it. Scary stuff.
Kevin says that information brokering is a huge business. His favorite websites to get information for his investigations include reverse phone numbers site and sites that give you the neighbors address and phone numbers for a number you might be searching for.
As Kevin says, almost any kind of information is available on the web. And a lot of it is being sold by the U.S. Government. The Social Security Administration is reselling dead people’s SSN information to websites like www.rootsweb.com.
Oct. 1, 2006.
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