IDENTITY THEFT VICTIM ASSISTANCE WORKSHOP - VOLUME 1 OPENING REMARKS PANEL 1 - VICTIMS' PANEL Moderators: PANEL 2 - CLEARING UP THE VICTIM'S CREDIT HISTORY - PART 1 91 Moderators: PANEL 3 - CLEARING UP THE VICTIM'S REDIT HISTORY - PART 2 179 Moderators: FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION IDENTITY THEFT VICTIM ASSISTANCE WORKSHOP OCTOBER 23, 2000 FTC HEADQUARTERS BUILDING ROOM 432 WASHINGTON, D.C.
P R O C E E D I N G S - - - - - - MR. STEVENSON: My name is Hugh Stevenson from the FTC, thank you all very much for coming today to our workshop on identity theft. Here to welcome you is the distinguished director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, Jodie Bernstein. MS. BERNSTEIN: Thank you very much, Hugh. And thank all of you. (Applause.) MS. BERNSTEIN: Thank you so much. Let me reciprocate by thanking all of you for coming to our workshop today. I know that it's going to be a very productive session. I will only take a few minutes to talk with you about it and then we'll get busy, because we have a very, very full agenda for both days, and we look forward to it. You may all recall that at the Treasury Summit on Identity Theft in March, we all agreed that this was a serious issue, and to further our discussion and debate toward bringing some light on this subject, we identified three issues for further scrutiny. As you all recall, I think they were prevention, prosecution and victim assistance. Our workshop today is going to focus on the latter, that is victim assistance. And to update you on the other events for a moment, the Social Security Administration will convene its workshop on prevention this Wednesday, October 25th, and that will be held across the mall at the Department of Health and Human Services. The Department of Justice, the Secret Service, will host a workshop for law enforcement on December 6th on investigation and prosecution. But the goal of today's workshop is to examine the problems victims experience with trying to restore their good name to financial health. And to explore the concrete steps we can take to make the process less burdensome. In particular, in particular, we hope to make progress on two initiatives that were raised at the Treasury Summit, and I must say have been raised in other fora as well. In fact, one of them has been incorporated into legislature proposals introduced on Capitol Hill this session, and depending on what kind of progress we all make, probably will come back again. The first is one we've come to call one-stop shop, a process by which a consumers call to any one of the three major consumer reporting agencies, or to the IDT hotline, will result in placing a fraud alert on the consumer file and all three consumer reporting agencies. The second initiative is a standard fraud declaration report identity theft activity to the bank, creditors, debt collectors or other entities involved. Rather than filling out a separate fraud packet for each of the institutions involved, the victim would fill out the standard fraud declaration once and send signed copies to each of the companies involved. Both of those issues have arisen, as I said, at the Treasury Summit, and both have been discussed in -- on Capitol Hill, and in other fora as well. I'm very optimistic and think that if we can make progress on those two issues, as we work together through these two days, we will have accomplished a great deal. Each and every one of you deserve kudos, and I would like to give them to you today, for being here with us to work through these issues. Especially the financial institutions. We know that your role in restoring a victim's good name is very complicated. And if you hear some minor criticism, not by name, but in regard to your institutions, we hope you'll take it in the spirit that it's offered, as a factual matter, and hopefully in a constructive way, we will work together to overcome any negatives of that sort. The main thing is, though, that you're here and you're indicating your willingness to work with us, and with all the groups that are involved here, and we really do thank you for that. Similarly, I would like to thank the law enforcement people who are here today, they're all stretched thin. We are, as well, but again, it's something that's necessary for all of us to work together. We haven't always in the past, and we intend to further that goal as well. The consumer advocates and private attorneys that are here today, similarly I would like to mention, again, because this involves so many different parties and so many different interests, that without the full participation of all of you, we would not make as much progress as I think we are capable of doing today. So, I know it's a sacrifice for all of you to be here to spend the time with us, but I think it will more than justify it if we achieve what we're setting out to do today. In regard to our part, as you know, we've made some progress I think internally. The Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act of '98 directed the FTC to establish a decentralized victim complaint consumer service for victims. We established a consumer complaint hotline for victims of identity theft and a centralized national data clearinghouse to share the complaint information equally. And many of the -- much of the trend data and other collections will be described to you and some are in your materials today. I think that in itself should prove very helpful. As you know, we also enforce a number of consumer credit laws, some of which touch on the issues that we're involved in today, but law enforcement certainly has its place, however we are not focusing on that today, but rather on cooperative efforts to begin to resolve the number of issues that we're trying to get through. We have a number of distinguished panelists participating in the sessions today and tomorrow. Today's panels will principally focus on the inaccuracies from the victim's credit history and credit accounts. Tomorrow we will focus on other forms of identity theft. That is the hardest phrase. Maybe we need to come up with a different phrase. If anybody does, I'll give them a T-shirt that says you reconstructed identity theft and did us all a favor. Tomorrow's will be the one that the hotline is hearing with greater frequency, that is criminal records, and bankruptcy records in the victim's name. The first panel today is the victim's panel. We will begin, however, with a presentation from our data clearinghouse. Then we'll hear from the victims because that's where the workshop issues all begin. We're fortunate to have victims here today who have been willing to travel from all over the country to share their experiences with us. That first-hand experience, I think will help us better understand what actually happens to victims and what victims think could happen and could be improved in the process of clearing up their problems. Once again, thanks to all of you for coming, for participating, and with that, let's get on with the first panel, thank you very much. (Applause.) MR. STEVENSON: Okay, I would ask the panelists for the first panel to come on up and take their seats and we will get started with that. As Jodie mentioned, we're starting with the victim's panel, hearing from the victims first hand what kinds of problems they have encountered here. And moderating this panel are Joanna Crane, Joanna Crane is the program manager for our identity theft program, and we're also very glad to have today as a moderator Mari Frank, who is a private attorney who is I think well known to many of you as someone who has been involved for some time in identity theft issues. Before the panel gets started, though, Joanna is going to -- before we hear from the victims here, Joanna is going to tell us in a bigger picture sense what we have heard from victims since our hotline and identity theft clearinghouse started operation back in November when we started accepting calls at 1-877-IDTHEFT, something we want to repeat a few times here, 877-IDTHEFT. And we've had the data since November, and for those in the overflow rooms, you can follow along, if you can't see on the screen with Joanna, in the book that is part of the package that you got today. Joanna? MS. CRANE: Thank you. I just want to start my program here. I'm sorry to have to ask all of you to sort of look over your shoulders to be able to follow along with the sites that I will be discussing. They are also in, as Hugh mentioned, the report that we've included in your packet. As Hugh mentioned, we launched our identity theft data clearinghouse in November of '99, and the data that we have to show you today goes through September 30th, so that's 11 months of data. And so it's beginning to give us a fairly reliable picture of what's happening in the sort of macro sense of identity theft nationwide. Most of the folks -- I should back up. Our hotline is a consumer complaint hotline, and the data in our database is consumer complaint information, it's not from law enforcement, and so we have to understand that this is as victims understand the situation. We don't have an additional validation process to verify it. It is solely consumer complaints as we collect them. What we've learned about identity theft, though, I think is very interesting. If you look at it on a nation-wide basis, you can see that the largest number of identity theft complaints are coming from the largest states, California, New York, Texas, Florida, Illinois, and Michigan. However, when you look at it on a per capita basis, it breaks up somewhat differently. We see that the highest concentration of per capita is spread throughout the west coast, also, Florida, Maryland, District of Columbia, and -- did I say Maryland and the District of Columbia. When you look at it broken down to a city level basis, actually the highest ranking city is the District of Columbia. We didn't have it on this chart because we're thinking of it more as a state, we like to think of DC statehood, but it is also a city, and it leads all the other cities with a rate of 19.6 per 100,000, then in ranking order it would be Houston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. When victims call us, they give us information that allows us to understand demographically what's going on. Many times they provide their age and thus far we have about 60 percent of the victims providing their age. What it shows us is the average age of consumers calling our hotline is 41 years of age. However, the most commonly reported age was 30 years, that's the mode I guess you call it. People age 65 and over, while they represent 12 percent of the U.S. population, they only represent seven percent of individuals calling our hotline. We're going to watch this relationship. We want to understand whether it means that people age 65 and older are less likely to experience identity theft or whether it means that they are simply less likely to call our hotline, whether there's an outreach effort there that we need to really focus attention on. On the other side, people age 18 and under represent 26 percent of the U.S. population, but only two percent of our victims. Well, I guess this makes sense that many of them are involved in setting up credit, so this number seems quite logical to us. What's happening to these people? What are they experiencing? Well, when you look at it purely in terms of what types of identity theft they've experienced, it's remained pretty consistent since we began collecting the data that by far and away the most common type of identity theft they've experienced is credit card fraud. Over 50 percent report that. Of that 50 percent, about three quarters are new credit cards established in your name. Only about one quarter are people accessing their current accounts and putting unauthorized charges on them. We were surprised to learn that unauthorized phone and outservices are also a very, very common form of identity theft.7 percent of the complainants report this sort of identify theft. Of this, about 40 percent is new phone service, about 5 percent is new wireless service, and about 13 percent is new utility service. So, between phone and wireless, there isn't a great deal of difference, and in general, this is new service, not people tapping into the existing service. We see that bank fraud comes in third at 17 percent, with about 50 percent affecting the existing accounts of the victims, about 35 percent would be new accounts of the victims, and another 20 percent would be electronic fund transfer activity. Fraudulent loans provides about 11 percent of the identity theft that we care about -- well, 11 percent of the victims who report to us report on fraudulent loans. I should back up and say most of our victims have experienced more than one type of fraud, so if you total over 100 percent, because we're going to get people reporting to various categories. With fraudulent loans, it's about 50 percent business and personal, about 30 percent auto loans and about 10 percent real estate and mortgage type activity. About eight percent of the people complain or let us know that a government document or benefit was forged or obtained in their name. Most often this is a driver's license. About 55 percent of the complainants let us know that someone either forged or obtained a driver's license in their name. About 13 percent report that a social security card was forged or issued and used in their name. About 12 percent report that someone has filed a fraudulent tax return in their name, which is enormously complicated to undo, I should say. Other types of identity theft that you see there, 20 percent of the people who are letting us know that identity theft doesn't fall into one of our major categories, complain that someone has undertaken employment in their name. There are consequences such as tax consequences and social security consequences associated with that victim. Eleven percent of our complainants tell us that someone has committed a criminal act and there is now a false criminal record in their name. About eight percent of the complainants let us know that people have claimed emergency type medical services in their name and have left them with a bill to pay. What do I know about what happened to them? About 60 percent of the callers know something about the suspect, they have either gotten bills or they may, in fact, know the suspect. So, 60 percent are able to provide some information about the suspect. However, only 14 percent can readily identify the suspect as someone with whom they had a relationship. In 86 percent of the cases, they only know through some sort of document trail something about the suspect, and that, of course, is the vast majority. If they do have information on the suspect, how often do they have a relationship? Well, again, 188 percent of those, there was no relationship, but where there is a relationship, it's most often with a family member, or someone with whom they've been very close in the past. It can also be workplace acquaintance or neighbor. But again, those are fairly small numbers. Where do the suspects come from? I don't have a slide on this, but I thought it was interesting. The top ten list of cities that people identified their suspects coming from are Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Chicago, Detroit, Miami, Houston, the Bronx, Philadelphia, Atlanta and the District of Columbia. Do the victims know much about how the suspect got their information? The answer is no. I think this is primarily because unless it's with someone with whom you have a relationship or you can actually see what's happened, as you see here, if they do know, it's most likely going to be something that was personal to them, either it was a wallet or purse lost or stolen, or mail bag, something that you can see that affects you in daily life. But in the vast majority of cases where it's more sophisticated means, such as credit card scheming or computer texting or hacking, they have no idea. Which means that 79 percent of the victims overall really have no idea how this has happened to them. Of those who do, again, it's a wallet or purse lost or stolen, mail theft, perhaps they just applied for a loan or a credit card and they thought that was compromised, their employment records were compromised, or someone broke into their house. But it's one of the difficulties in resolving identity heft is the victim doesn't know it's happened for quite a long time. In fact, we found that over the average number of months that elapse between the date it occurred and the date the victim found out is 15 months, which I think jives pretty well with the study done by Cowper, which is again the privacy rights clearinghouse. We find that there are many victims who don't discover it for over five years. Now, we do see that 30 percent discover it in less than one month, and those are the fortunate few, but again, the average is 15 months and it stretches up to over 60 months. One of the things we try and do here at the Federal Trade Commission when a victim calls is let them know what steps they need to take. We have found, we wanted to validate that this was a worthy process for us to go through, and I don't have a slide on this, but we have found that at the time of initially filing their complaint, only 43 percent of complainants had notified all of the three major credit bureaus. So, there are more than half the people had not known to take that step and had not yet taken that step when they called our hotline, so we are glad we're reaching those people with this very important step. Of the 33 percent, we found that almost 100 percent, about 93 percent of those folks did place the fraud alert, so once they got ahold of the fraud reporting agency, things went well based on that report. As far as the financial institution contact, we advised consumers when they call us to call each of the creditors and to put their dispute in writing. Fifty percent of the complainants reported that they had notified the financial institutions before they called us. However, of these, only 29 percent of victims overall had sent written notifications to the institution. So, again, I think we're providing a valuable service by letting consumers know that they just don't need to call the financial institutions, but to follow up in writing. And lastly, contacting the police. How many of the consumers who had called us had already notified their local police department? Fifty-nine percent. That's good, but still there's 40 percent out there that we're getting the message to very late about that. Interestingly, we found that if they had already notified the police, a good 36 percent had not been able to obtain a police report, so we're identifying a little weakness in the system there. That should be 100 percent. If you notify the police, you should walk away with a police report. We're hoping that with the hard work being done by the IACP and other law enforcement organizations that will become a reality. Well, that's all I wanted to say today, because I do think the victims themselves through their experience will be able to tell us how it actually impacts them in their daily lives, but this is just a big overview from our database that I hope has been informative. Mari, do you want to take it from here while I shut this down? MS. FRANK: If I could just ask that we introduce everybody. We want to welcome you here this morning, and I especially want to say thank you to the victims for coming and sharing your story, because you've already experienced so much invasion of your privacy, and it's really something for you to be able to share this story and help yourself and other people to make a difference. I remember when I testified on the Identity Theft Assumption and Deterrence Act in 1998 with David Medine who is now at the White House, and I was envisioning what would happen, and I think that what has happened with Jodie Bernstein and Betsy Broder and Joanna Crane here has been a tremendous job, and I want to thank you guys for the wonderful work that you have been doing, because I really see a big difference in coordinating and collaborating. Did you want to introduce everybody? MS. CRANE: Sure, I would be happy to. MS. FRANK: And then I will take over. Because I want to make sure that we know who everybody is on the panel. MS. CRANE: We have brought folks who are victims of identity theft from all over the country to be with us here today. Starting on my far right, is Joe Genera, here from Connecticut, Robert Greer, here from New Hampshire, Mari, of course, and myself. Oh, I want to mention Mari is here from California and is also a victim of identity theft, as well as being a professional counselor and attorney who works with clients who have experienced identity theft. Deborah North is here from Maryland, Nicole Robinson, also from Maryland, Eric Graves from California, and Kathleen Lund, who works here at the Federal Trade Commission as an investigative assistant and has spoken to thousands of victims and will be able to fill in from her depth of experience additional information as to what victims do go through. MS. FRANK: Okay. You know, there's three reasons why someone would commit identity theft. Joanna talked a lot about the financial industry in that someone will steal an identity for financial gain, or to become a legal citizen, or to get health care services, or to forestall that a foreclosure by committing, you know, filing bankruptcy, or they'll do a variety of things to get financial gain. Now, the second reason that someone might commit identity theft is to avoid prosecution, and we have right here someone that's going to talk about that on the panel. And the third reason that someone would commit identity theft is for retribution or they want to get back at someone, such as an ex-spouse will hire somebody to commit identity theft against their spouse, or a CEO will find that someone in the -- in his company has stolen his identity and perhaps sold it to someone else to ruin his identity. So, that's the third one. And I don't know if we're going to have anybody talk about that one, but that's becoming an issue. So, those are the three reasons why somebody would commit identity theft. And once you experience identity theft as I have and as all these people have, it is a nightmare that takes hundreds of hours. And one of the things I hope that you'll consider as we listen today to some of the issues that need to be accomplished, especially with regard to the standard form that would be sent out, please remember that as victims, we have already lost our identity, and what has happened is, that the imposter has been able to get credit and other services with very little information that they had to provide, yet when we have to prove who we are, we give our whole life away. And on the form that you're going to consider today and tomorrow, please consider that there's information there that's going to be disseminated to the entire world, and you might want to consider limiting that and safeguarding that information, because we've already given our whole lives away. So, I know the people here have really experienced a nightmare, in just trying to prove who they are. I mean, when you've become an identity theft victim, you start to wonder, you know, who am I really, you know, how someone can take my identity. I know that it's important for you to know that anybody in here can become a victim. Remember when your chairman of the Federal Trade Commission got up in March and said that he was a victim of identity theft. And someone who is as careful as I am, I became a victim again in July, a victim of skimming. And so each one of us, this is not about quote the victim out there, this is about each one of us. And also the financial industry, you're victims, too. I mean, your companies are victims. You've lost money, you spend thousands of extra dollars on hiring new personnel to help you in your fraud department and for your credit reporting agency. So, all of us here are victims, and when you hear the challenges, what we're going to be doing is the victims are going to be able to share some of their greatest challenges and then we're going to go over their suggestions.Please remember, like Jodie was saying, don't take it personally, take it as food for thought and for information so we can solve ourselves. We're not here to say you're the bad guys, we're here to say look, guys, we've got a problem, you're victims, we're victims, how can we make this work better for all of us. I see Werner Raes out there and I know that the law enforcement agencies are overwhelmed with not enough resources. I see, you know, Diane Terry, from the credit reporting agencies, working as hard as she can, and yet it's overwhelming. And so all of us here should be working together and doing hopefully what I call solutioneering. We have brainstormed a number of solutions, and these are out on the table out there, if you haven't picked one up. These are just a few of them, and Joanna had to cut some of mine, because I had more pages, but we have a lot of suggestions. Now, if you say oh, this will never work, take it in stride and say well, this won't work, but this might work. So, we're looking to try and find ways that the victims can be -- that we as victims can be helped, that we as citizens can be helped, and that law enforcement and all of us can be helped together. So, what's going to happen is, Joanna is now going to ask each of the victims to provide, tell us some of their challenges and how they first found out about the identity theft, and then I'm going to help them to do some of that solutioneering. So, thank you. MS. CRANE: I just wanted to mention that their statements by each of the victims in your packet, rather than having each victim today stand up and give their statement in its entirety, we thought we would have them focus on key areas of their experience that will help us in our panels, tomorrow, for the rest of the day and tomorrow. So, rather than read the statements, they're in your packet. And as Mari mentioned, I'm going to sort of asking the victims a series of questions in three areas. First is basically how they discovered it. Secondly, we're going to talk about what was the response of the various entities they had to go to when they initially reported the fraud. This is, you know, when they made those first phone calls. And then, sort of our third area will be and what was the procedure like, what were your experiences, as you began to work through the process of clearing your name. And while I'll be soliciting the experiences, Mari will be soliciting suggestions on how that might be improved. I guess it seems fair, again, to start on my far right, with Eric Graves. Excuse me, Joe Genera. Joe, would you be able to tell us now how you all came to first discover that you were victims of identity theft? MR. GENERA: It began in 1998. My fiance at the time, who is now my wife, went to buy a car from a car dealership. And I get a call at home that day, after they check her credit report, and according to Kathleen, she has one credit card account, one ready credit account for $500, and an existing car loan. So, we figured she has a great job, great credit history, car loan is going to be no problem. The dealer calls our home, talks to me, and says Joe, we want to sell her this car, we would love to see her in it, she has too much credit. And I said well, what do you mean, too much credit? Well, she has 16 credit cards. I said 16? He goes yeah, and he starts going through the list. So, I basically say hang on, I hang up with him, I call Kath and I say what's up, you know, you told me you only had one. You know, a great way to start a relationship. Fortunately, she was vindicated. In any case, it turns out that two people related to her through all those free offers of credit, those preapproved offers of credit we all get in the mail, had decided to intercept those at her home, fill out the credit applications using her social security number, sending them back in. Those companies offering all this great free credit, don't ask any identifying information whatsoever, no social security -- I mean no picture ID, nothing, it comes in the mail, you sign it, send it back. They have no way of knowing who the person is that filled out that form. As it turned out, and now with fees, et cetera, it's in excess of $50,000 has been charged just through that -- just through that method. Whether or not -- whether or not additional credit had been obtained as far as we believe it also occurred at department stores and things like that, they generally seem to be the easiest ones to get credit from. That's how we found out. And you want to talk about a heck of a surprise. When we got that credit report, which you would assume would just have, you know, the two credit accounts, nine pages long. MS. CRANE: That must have been quite a shock. Maybe we'll go to the other end of the table now and ask Eric. How did you first discover that you were a victim of identity theft? MR. GRAVES: Well, actually, it was my son. He was 19, this was also in 1998. He was applying for a credit card -- not credit card, for a used car loan, and it turned out that he got turned down, it was Lockheed Federal Credit Union that turned him down. And at that point then we started investigating his credit, got a list of the three credit agencies, got reports from them, all of which have different ways of reporting it. It was like trying to figure out a new legend for each report. And it was just brand new to us how to attempt to try to confront the situation. He didn't get the car loan, obviously, but we've taken two years to try to clear his ID of two different addresses, one in Sandy Springs, Georgia, we're from LA, a water and power bill that wasn't paid, and also bankruptcy, someone had gotten his name and his social security number, and claimed bankruptcy under his name. And he is 19 years old. He hadn't lived anywhere else but our house. So, trying to go through all the paperwork was obviously a nightmare. The first people we contacted was over the Internet, the OIG Hotline and the three credit reporting agencies, but we really didn't get any sense of here's the procedure you should do, and it was very frustrating to try to know where to go first, and it all mushroomed from there. MS. CRANE: Thank you. Robert, what about you, how did you first discover that you were a victim of identity theft? MR. GREER: My cases had a few different aspects, and every time something new comes up, I find out about it through a different means. The first time it happened, I got a phone call from a fraud investigator at a bank in South Dakota, I'm a New Hampshire resident, it was very unusual. She asked me a series of identity questions, which I answered, and she told me what was going on. And a clerk at a retail store whom this bank handles, as the account, noticed that the ID used was a fraudulent ID. So, they contacted their fraud department who contacted me. The second time it flared up, I received a suspension notice from New Hampshire Department of Motor Vehicles for my license. That's when I found out that the bad guy got a speeding ticket that he never paid. I'm sure he meant to, but he just didn't get around to it. MR. GENERA: He could have charged it. MR. GREER: And the third one I'm still working through, and that's criminal activity. And I found out through a firearm purchase, with any firearm purchase, you do a background check, and it came back delayed, and then a couple of days later, it came back denied. So, I went up to the state house in Cochran to find out why. And just trying to describe the shock of having three outstanding warrants for your arrest in a neighboring state, it's not real easy to do. But that's how I found out. MS. CRANE: That's real interesting, thank you. Nicole, how about you? MS. ROBINSON: I was on my way to the mall, and my sister paged me, she said some man had called me from Kay Jewelers fraud department, and when I returned the call to him, he had let me know that an individual had come into a store in San Antonio, and I live in Maryland, had come into a store in San Antonio and opened an instant credit report, it was $3,200, she had bought two watches and a ring. And she had did that on Thursday. Well, she returned on Friday trying to obtain more merchandise, and they thought it was suspicious. So, they told her to come back and use the Criss-Cross directory, because of course the number she provided was a Texas number to contact me in Maryland. And he told me at that time what I should do to alert the three credit reporting agencies to the fraud. This individual was arrested, but she was only charged with one crime, she was not charged with stealing my identity. MS. CRANE: Thank you. And finally, Deborah? MS. NORTH: I came home from work one afternoon and I had gotten a phone call. It sounded like a solicitor, which normally that call doesn't last very long, but thank goodness that I did listen to the call, because it was from a collections agency. And they told me -- well, actually they asked me if I was this person, of another name, same first name. And I said no, but I knew who it was. So, I immediately was alert. It was someone I had worked with three years prior. They then asked me what my social security number was, and I said well, that was my number, and then they said well, you owe over $10,000. And I tried to explain the story, and, you know, they began harassing me. And so that was the beginning. I found out that this person had gotten over eight accounts with my social security number. Over $27,000 worth. I called all the credit bureaus, I got my credit file. What was interesting is when I got my credit file, it had her name on it, and that is really annoying. And her birthday. Which she's 13 years older than I am. So -- MS. FRANK: Especially that. MS. NORTH: So, that was the beginning of what they said was a long process, a lot of work, and time, to prove your innocence. You know, normally you're innocent until proven guilty, but in this case, it's the opposite. MS. CRANE: Thank you. If you can remember back, panelists, to when you first made that phone call, either to the police or credit reporting agency or a creditor, trying to tell them that you were a victim of identity theft, and being handled by whatever procedures they might have set up to deal with victims, I would like to focus on that for a moment, because I think that's a very important moment. It's important for you to be able to get the responses that you need as a victim of identity theft, but let's talk about what actually happened. Nicole, we'll go back to you. When you first reported the fraud to the credit reporting agencies, what was that process like for you? MS. ROBINSON: Well, I call it my weekend of anxiety, because I was contacted on a Friday night, so I had to wait until Monday morning, and I think it would have been helpful to be able to contact the credit reporting agencies right then. I was on hold at work all day Monday trying to get in contact with the three reporting agencies. I did manage to get two on the phone, I believe it was Experian and Equifax. I managed to get actual live people on the phone. With Trans Union, I couldn't get a person on the phone, and because the individual had applied for so much credit, they had changed the information on my credit file. Like in your case, they had changed my birth date to reflect her birth date. The address was wrong. So, when I entered my zip code, of course, I could not get access to my own credit file. So, what I had to do was go home, find a utility bill, some other form of ID, and my driver's license, and then the next day, faxed it to Trans Union so I could get that fraud alert. And it was really frustrating, because I didn't know that the fraud alert was going to go on there right away. With the other two, I did know that they would put it on right away, but with Trans Union, I didn't know when the fraud alert was going to be placed on there, because I couldn't get a person on the phone. So, it was really frustrating. MS. CRANE: And when you were talking to live personnel at the other two agencies, how much information were you able to find out from them about what was in your credit report at that time? MS. ROBINSON: Only one. Experian was able to give me a number of recent inquiries, and because I hadn't applied for any credit a year prior to this happening, she was able to give me phone numbers to the places that had requested my credit, so I was able to get working on that right away. Equifax, I had to wait for them to mail it to me. So, I couldn't get working on that, but through Experian, I was able to find out that she had applied for a loan recently, and that's how she was able to be arrested. MS. CRANE: So, because you were able to get that information right away, they were able to catch her in the process? MS. ROBINSON: Yes. MS. CRANE: And to apprehend her and arrest her? MS. ROBINSON: Yes, Experian told me that she had applied for a loan, and it so happened that the loan was with my mortgage lender, and I contacted them, and they said oh, yeah, last week this woman came in. And she applied for a personal loan. And I said well, you know, tell her you have a check for her and arrest her, and that's what happened. MS. CRANE: Great. Eric, what happened when you first contacted the credit reporting agencies? MR. GRAVES: You mean Joe? MR. GENERA: Joe. MS. CRANE: Eric's down there, I'm sorry, I'm switched. MR. GRAVES: I've already lost my identity. MS. CRANE: This is to Eric. MR. GRAVES: Actually now I have, now I know what my son feels like. I don't really remember exactly the response, from my notes it indicated that we had to go through a lot of voice mail, no person. We had to drill down through a lot of different automated messages to get anything. And with one of the agencies, I believe it was Trans Union, we had to fax ID, you know, a copy of the driver's license, a copy of the social security number. And I believe also a utility bill, even though he didn't have one, it would have been ours. And none of them would tell us anything over the phone because we couldn't really get a person. And so, you know, everybody has these weeks of anxiety, or days, at least, and ours was that, because we had to wait in the mail for, you know, wait for the mail to come to show the listings from the credit reporting agencies. And like I said earlier, it was hard to decipher, initially. And so you really don't have anybody to talk to at the beginning, and that's -- as I look back on it, and I think things have progressed where I know the thing that I got from the FTC with regards to, you know, how to handle bad credit with your good name or something like that, that has a lot of good things now, but in '98, I don't know if it was surfacing yet, and I certainly didn't get a feel for what I should be going through. And so, you know, police reports and, you know, putting credit fraud alerts weren't occurring until early this year. MS. CRANE: Was it particularly hard to get the credit report because it wasn't on your own behalf but on behalf of a dependent? MR. GRAVES: Yeah, actually it was. I had to have my son go through this whole thing, and it was, you know, I had to try to give him crib sheets on, you know, what numbers to punch to get through the thing, and then he could put his, you know, voice on the recording and request it. MS. CRANE: And now, Joe. The real Joe. MR. GENERA: Upon discovery, of course, the first thing we did was contact the three credit bureaus, both via phone call and in writing. I can tell you without exaggeration, over the course of the first three days upon discovery, we were on the phone for nine hours, because I've logged pretty much every minute that we spent on this thing, and later when I tell you the number, you will be amazed, I hope. But literally, in the first three days, nine hours on the phone, either on hold, waiting for the right department, trying to get through voice mails, et cetera. We did the same thing, we faxed copies of IDs, social security numbers, all those cards and all that sort of thing. I can also say, at some point during this process, we went down to the 45th Precinct in the Bronx to talk to their detectives about the frauds we reported initially and do something about it. Because the credit card companies were making us feel like -- as an earlier speaker said, that we were guilty before being proven innocent. And even though the crime was against -- technically it was against the companies, it was up to us to prove our innocence. So, we go to the police department, basically got laughed out of there. We pretty much got forced out, out of the 45th Precinct. It took probably about two hours of sitting there. We got this little slip of paper, it wasn't even a police report, but just an incident number. Never took any pertinent information, pretty much literally forced us out of there. They agreed to meet with us, if I could get up a flight of stairs, to the second floor. In case you haven't noticed, I use a wheelchair. So, the initial reporting did not go well. MS. CRANE: Thank you. You've raised the -- another topic I wanted to cover, so maybe we'll move on to it, and that is reporting to the police, and how that works out. Deborah, what was yours experience in trying to report to the police? MS. NORTH: This crime occurred in D.C., initially, and so I tried to call the D.C. police. And of course they told me that they would not take a report until I had documentation from the creditors. Well, I'm still in the process of doing that. So, I was never able to file a report. And the person that committed this crime is now down in Florida. So, it's very difficult to try to get these different agencies to work together. And I called -- I didn't know who to call, I mean I don't have experience with this. So, I called, I'm like well, the FBI, it's across state lines, I don't know, and they're like no, call Secret Service. And so they handle that. And I'm like Secret Service, that sounds pretty strange, you know, but I called them and they're like well, we do handle it, but only bigger cases, you know, $100,000, a million dollars, and yours really isn't a case we want to deal with. So, I really got the run-around, and finally I told them I knew where this person was, that she was down in Orlando, I know it's her, and I had called the Orlando police, you know, given her address, and they said well, you know, this happened in D.C., what do you expect us to do about it. So, when I talked to the Secret Service, who I think he was just placating me, you know, to make me feel better, because he told me he wasn't going to take care of the case, he called me back a few days later and he said that he had someone that they dealt with in Orlando in the economics crimes department. So, I got in touch with that person, and they were really able to help me, and they've been working with me, even though it may really not be in their jurisdiction, but after I gave him information, he found out that this person had an outstanding warrant, they were able to arrest her. They aren't able to arrest her for what she did to me, because they're still trying to prove the case, but I'm still -- it's still being worked on. So, it's a long run-around, basically. MS. CRANE: Thank you. And Robert, you certainly have had a lot of back and forth with the police. How did it go when you made your initial report, or was it them actually sort of reaching out to you? MR. GREER: Initially, the -- I went to my town police department. After contacting the FBI, Social Security Administration, and a few other agencies, I've forgotten everybody I contacted, but there was either finger pointing saying we can't help you because the case isn't large enough, but this agency may be able to. There was a lot of empathy, but nobody was actually able to do a thing about it. Clean up the record. I'm still working on cleaning up my record. MS. CRANE: We will get to that in a second. MR. GREER: Yeah, when I made the phone call to the Bedford police, the detective there gave it to me in plain English. He said we have your case, yes, you're a victim, but you have not been in physical danger, you were not threatened, your house was not invaded. Over here I have a home invasion, third night in a row, and there were $40,000 worth of jewelry stolen in this night. Where am I going to put my attention? And I fully empathized, that is by far a more serious crime in the scheme of things, but I don't want to be ignored. None of us do. And when it goes to your credit record and your criminal record, it's among the most heinous things that can happen against you. MS. CRANE: Thanks. Eric, you had an experience reporting to the police, and your case was acted upon, correct? MR. GRAVES: It hasn't been acted upon -- well, I guess it depends upon your determination of acted upon, or the definition of it. I guess I feel guilty that I didn't file this report earlier. I just didn't think of it as a criminal crime, I guess a crime that the police would follow up on, and I guess in retrospect, I'm still right, but I did file it. You know, I did file it, and it was because it was the only thing that the creditors, actually not the creditor, but the person collecting the DWT bill would accept so that they could see that yeah, I am contesting the issue for my son, that this isn't him that owes the money, and so I had to file a police report. So, from that aspect, we filed it late, and they took the report, but they didn't -- they xeroxed a lot of the information. My son had persevered and actually gotten the court documents about the bankruptcy, so we gave the police department copies of everything we had. I had to send back a form, spend $13 with a check, wait weeks for the LAPD to return my report so I could have a full report of the issue, and then I got a letter about a few weeks after that saying that it's been turned over to their financial investigation team. And this was back in March, I believe, that we reported it, of this year, we still haven't heard from any person, a detective or anything, as far as a follow-up. MR. GENERA: If I could just add something to this, one of the things that was made plain to us by a lot of the creditors, and as I said, I believe there are 14 total, well, go down to your police department, get yourself a police report number or whatever, and we'll take over the investigation from there. We did that, it didn't do one bit of good with any of the agencies or the creditors themselves. Since that time, last November, we contacted directly ourselves -- in fact we have become very good detectives, by this point. We contacted the Bronx DA's office, and turned the case over to them. In the two -- over two years we've been dealing with this issue, not one creditor, nor credit reporting agency has contacted either the police department nor the DA. MS. CRANE: That was sort of the next area I was going to go to, and that was making the initial report to the creditors. Just throw it out to the group. How -- what was your general experience with trying to get your banks and other financial institutions apprised of the fact that you were a victim of identity theft? I shouldn't say your bank, I would just say the institutions involved. MR. GREER: I would say in my case, and I was notified by the fraud investigator about nine days after all the activity started, so I was very, very lucky in that there was minimal activity. And because I was well within the first billing cycle, I had -- it was very easy and almost pleasurable to deal with everybody. And I was able to place the security alerts, find out from the creditors or from the reports which accounts were most active, most recently active, and I was able to contact them directly, and I shut down three of the initial five accounts without any loss to anybody. But initially that's how it went. MS. CRANE: How about you, Deborah, were you able to close the accounts fairly readily? MS. NORTH: I think the most problems I've had is with the creditors to this point. In the beginning, everything was difficult, but the crime report is being resolved, my credit file is being resolved, they've worked with me, but when you call the creditors, and you leave these messages with the customer service agent, you really feel like you're just leaving a voice mail to nowhere. You really are not getting a response. You have to continually call back, you're getting voice mail, or they leave a message with you and they say, you know, we haven't received your affidavit back, you know, please get back with me. One individual he left an extension, I called back, he wasn't at that extension, and I was told he didn't even have an extension. He didn't have voice mail. I couldn't get back in touch with him. So, that is still going on. That's the part I really want to have resolved is my credit file is getting cleaned up, but I don't have any confirmation or any correspondence from the creditors to say that we know that you're not involved with this and, you know, you have no need to worry. MS. FRANK: I have a question, how easy was it for you to get the credit applications and the billing statements that were in your name that were fraudulent? Were you able to do that? MR. GENERA: If I could speak to that. We have -- there are still six creditors left on this report two years later. There were 14 initially. Not one single company in any of the last two years has provided us with any documentation whatsoever that this account does belong to us. Because basically what we've been telling these people is okay, you're saying this account is ours, okay? Show us the proof. Give me a signed copy of the application, show me my wife's signature, show me the bank statements where the purchases were made. I mean not the bank statements, the invoices where the purchases were made, show me credit card receipts with a forged, you know, with signatures on them. Not one of them has provided it, period. Okay? I'll stop. MR. GREER: I concur. MS. FRANK: I concur, too, because I have been through it. MS. ROBINSON: I did get some statements, only because when I got the inquiries on my credit report, she had opened these accounts -- this happened in March, she had opened these accounts in early March, early April. So, the accounts were fairly new. So, they weren't showing on my credit reports, but the inquiries were showing on my credit reports. So, when I contacted the businesses that ran these credit reports, they would send me the bill. They would say okay, I would say I have been a victim of identity theft, I did not authorize opening this account, and they would send me the bill saying okay, thank you for notifying us of your change of address, here is your bill. That's how I got the bills. I didn't -- they didn't readily send them to me, they didn't regularly send me fraud affidavits, I had to ask for those, but that's the only way I got any bills, was they said okay, it's a change of address, and they sent it to my house. MS. CRANE: Mari, do you want to work with the group on brainstorming and coming up with suggestions about this initial period when you're reporting the fraud to the police and the credit reporting agencies and the creditors? MS. FRANK: Sure. Okay, so why don't we start, then, Joe, do you want to begin with any of the suggestions that you have? I mean, I was thinking we could even do it in the categories, you know, if you wanted to do it that way, the categories of creditors and credit reporting. Let's do creditors first and then collection companies. MR. GENERA: I have one suggestion for creditors and credit reporting companies, follow the federal regulations. Do what you're supposed to do. You know, as I said, 14 creditors, out of those 14, five sent us affidavits of fraud. The others did not. We ended up drafting a boiler plate affidavit of fraud on our computer and sending it out to the remaining companies. If you're claiming this account does belong to us, follow the regulations. You need to provide us, as you would in a criminal case, you need to provide us evidence that this is our account. And if you can't do so, or you refuse to do so, then get it the hell off our credit report, okay? Forgive my anger, okay, we've -- this has ruined our life, okay? I can literally say we have gone through this for over two years, we got married a little over a year ago, okay? We aren't happy honeymooners, okay? This is terrible. MS. FRANK: I'm sorry about that, it's hard, but just think what a strong marriage you're going to have from that. If you guys can get through this, you can get through anything. MR. GENERA: We're not lawyers, but we play them at home. I'm sorry. MS. FRANK: Bob, can you give some suggestions to the creditors and reporting companies? MR. GREER: From the agencies or anybody really, if we can talk to a real person, that was very, very helpful in my case, because in most cases, I was able to talk to a person, and get the response I needed. A lot of the other panelists here have not had that pleasure, or that experience. And I think their experience would be very different if they had talked to an actual person. And where I've hit stumbling blocks is with any kind of documentation regarding all of these accounts. As the fraud victim, we need to be able to prove that the documentation not generated by us that we are the victim of fraud. And to do that, we need documentation from the fraudulent accounts. MS. FRANK: And quickly you need the documentation, quickly. MR. GREER: Not just the creditors, but also from law enforcement. The perpetrator was arrested, and I still don't know what he was arrested for. I know he was arrested trying to use my identity, but I don't know what he was actually charged with. MR. GENERA: And to creditors, we've opted out with the three agencies, we've opted out of the preapproved credit offers, there was a fraud statement on our account. In the last three weeks, my wife has received nine pre-approved offers for credit. This is what got her in the situation in the first place. We don't want these. Period. If we want a loan, we'll come to you. MS. FRANK: Okay, how about Eric, can you tell us some suggestions for the creditors and collection companies? MR. GRAVES: Well, I guess in my son's case, we were really fortunate in that there were no bills put on credit cards like the other panelists' situations, so from that standpoint, we've had it fairly easy. With the bankruptcy that's on his ID, however, you know, it goes to the same things that everyone else is saying. You know, ask for the appropriate ID when you do things. I can't believe that the lawyer nor the bankruptcy court in Woodland Hills, California, didn't ask for somebody's ID. If they had asked for a picture ID and three pieces of identification besides, it wouldn't have gotten anywhere, I'm sure, and it wouldn't have gotten on his record. It seems -- MS. FRANK: Now, were you able to get documentation, though, from the bankruptcy court? Were you able to get the documentation that you needed from all the different agencies? MR. GRAVES: Well, is that a couple of questions? MS. FRANK: I'm sorry. MR. GRAVES: I got all the crediting report agencies, is that what you meant by agencies? MS. FRANK: Well, yeah. MR. GRAVES: Like the bankruptcy court, like I said, my son somehow got through the door and got the court dockets that are apparently public information. So, he was able to get that on his own accord, which I was really amazed at. So, we've had that in our hand and we've been able to see the signature and we've been able to see the lawyer's name. You know, the other thing, it benefits these thieves, as much as it benefits us, to have all this information out on the Internet. I mean, I went on the Internet to look up this damn lawyer's name, and I got, you know, his name, his address and everything. I was about ready to go down to his house, you know. And likewise, they can get information from us. Likewise, the Internet could facilitate some things, but you've got to be really secure, you know, you send an email across with your social security number and stuff in it, you better have it securitized so you can do that. That would help the fast response, but I don't know if it's the way to do it yet, because I don't think it can be secure yet. But it also boils down to the fact that I think, you know, maybe now the word is getting out that this is a major problem, but I think everybody is taking the easy way out. Everybody we've talked to, you know, it wasn't their problem, they didn't identify with the seriousness of it. I don't know if my son will have actual good credit down the road. I don't know how it's really hampered it yet, although it supposedly has been cleared. And, you know, people will give you the run-around that's been pointed out here with other victims. And, you know, we went down in December of '98, right after this occurred, it occurred in September of '98, we went down while my son was on vacation, we went down to social security to get my son a new number. With all the documentation I've got, it seems a case that the Social Security Administration would give you a new number. I could guess, you know, everybody's response when I asked, you know, because you ask somebody could you get that number and start doing things. So, they start rationalizing why we shouldn't have a new number. Obviously with a younger person, there's not as much accounting that has to go on with changing, you know, work stuff. Later in life, it probably would be a big mistake, but, you know, we went down there and we got a couple of windows, people we talked to, the clerks just didn't take it seriously. Finally somebody returned -- waived to the clerk's window again, they documented -- they xeroxed all my documentation, this whole file, and they said the supervisor said we could give you a new number. Well, you know, a couple of weeks later, a thin envelope came in the mail, and I -- like I mentioned in my statement, you know, to my wife, I played Carnack and I said what do you want to bet this is just a brand new social security card and new number and that's exactly what it was. So, you know, I got a lot of run-around between the FTC -- I'm sorry, not the FTC, but -- MS. FRANK: They're the good guys. MR. GRAVES: The U.S. Trustee, in LA, and the bankruptcy court in Woodland Hills. And I did talk to someone who was very helpful trying to dig through all this stuff, and he was the only person that took an interest, you know, but he didn't know really what to do, but he did -- he did try to help. MS. FRANK: So, I think we're getting back to the idea that all of the different, you know, entities that we have to deal with need to understand this problem, and need to give us direction that's clear, and that's concise, and that everybody understands, and then we need to have someone who can kind of guide us through and stay with us, you know, whatever agency you're dealing with, you need to have some -- one person that leads you through the whole thing. MR. GRAVES: And I think it's a different avenue for everybody, so I think you need to do it by these categories. MR. GENERA: And consistent, it needs to be consistent. MS. FRANK: Nicole? MS. ROBINSON: I'm sorry, what was the question? MS. FRANK: I'm sorry, what suggestions do you have for the creditors and the collection agencies? MS. ROBINSON: Because I was notified of mine so early, I think what would be helpful to me would be that the individual can no longer access my credit file. Although the fraud alerts are on there and she has stopped getting credit around June when she bought a car, it would have been helpful that the minute that I was informed, the minute that the guy from Kay Jewelers called me, that my credit file could have been cut off, completely, because I'm finding that and all summer long I found that I was running behind her trying to catch these accounts before -- excuse me, before she was able to run up balances and stuff like that. So, it would have been helpful for me, for my credit report to be cut off the minute that the credit reporting agencies knew that I was a victim of fraud. MS. FRANK: So, you need to get your credit report taken offline, or did you experience that the fraud alerts were not working? MS. ROBINSON: No, it did not work in my case. The individual in my case, I know that she got a Rainbow vacuum cleaner, $1,600, which is showing on my credit report right now. She got a car. She got a car insurance policy. She also got a cellular phone. And although my numbers were on there, my cell phone, my work phone, my home phone, nobody ever contacted me when they ran my credit. And the fraud alerts were supposedly put on in April, and this was in May and June when she was opening new accounts. She applied for a mortgage right after her arrest, and I was never contacted. So, I mean it would have been helpful, too, for these businesses to have called me and alerted me that she was still doing this. MS. FRANK: Right. MS. ROBINSON: But the fraud alerts did not help at all. So, what would have been helpful was that my credit report was not accessible. MS. FRANK: And Deborah? MS. NORTH: One suggestion I could make is speaking to the detective that's helping me with the case, is he says it's very difficult to get the creditors to work with him in investigating. He sent investigative subpoenas, and if they don't want to respond, they don't have to. There's no accountability. So, I think there really needs to be accountability there for the creditors that should work with the authorities and hopefully it would be on a federal level rather than just state by state. So, because he's going across state lines, they don't have to respond. MS. FRANK: Okay. How about if we go to the credit reporting agencies now and discuss what suggestions that we have specifically for the credit reporting agencies. Do you want to start with that? MR. GREER: I'm real quick and easy, just real people. And just consistency. As John was saying. MS. FRANK: Joe? MR. GREER: Joe? MR. GENERA: That's one of my aliases. MS. FRANK: Do you want to add something to the credit reporting agencies? MR. GENERA: Yes. One of the frustrating things that we run into, and we have probably gotten every two to three months, we get a new copy of the credit report to see where we're at in our struggle to get this clear. Consistently, there are accounts coming back that are not our accounts that are coming back as verified. In one particular example, are we using names or not? Don't use names? Was that determined yet? MS. CRANE: Go ahead. MR. GENERA: In one example, or actually with two, The Wiz and Disney. Both credit cards accounts over $1,000. Neither of these companies have gotten back to us ever, period, as far as sending any affidavits, anything. You're still reporting these as verified. We've asked -- we've sent letters stating these companies have never contacted us, you know, to clear it, especially Disney, I mean it's been a black wall. How can you verify a company or verify an account as ours if the company isn't going to investigate it? That's one. There is -- we also have three American Express accounts that showed up. We have in our possession, last November, American Express did their investigations, we have two letters from them stating okay, we agree, account one, two and three do not belong to you. Somehow in the mix, and in the mix of all this, some time over the last summer, American Express obtained judgments against my wife's mother. They happened to -- they used to share the same last name. These judgments are filed in Bronx civil court, and now these three judgments, because they don't have her mother's social security number, they put them back on Kathleen's account. This was last November. They seized our bank accounts. The judgments are still on there. Okay? So, we send letters to Trans Union, Equifax, Experian. We send copies of the American Express letters exonerating us, these are not Kathleen's accounts, these are not our accounts. We get the new credit report back, verified as yours. How can you do that? How can you do this? Our attorney told us that when you guys are verifying, they send a clerk down to the clerk's office, he looks at the paper, oh, yeah, that's Kathleen, yep, verified. That's not how you do it. If you have documentation that this is not our account, call American Express and say you've got to do something about this, this is wrong. MS. FRANK: Let me just share with you what we have done in California. In 1998 we passed a law that says basically that if you're a victim of identity theft, and you get a police report, and you list all the fraud on the police report, and send a letter to the three credit bureaus, with a copy of that police report listing the fraud, that within 30 days they need to block that, and then it comes off your credit report, and then the burden shifts to the creditor to prove that it's not fraud. Now, all these people are saying we're guilty until we're proven innocent, which was the same thing that happened to me. And what you're talking about, Joe, this particular law that we have in California, if it was nationwide, or if it was applied to all three bureaus in all states, then the burden would shift and you would be innocent until proven guilty, and so that's one very strong suggestion I think that's helpful for victims in California, and I think it should be applied nation-wide. I know Diane was talking about she was going to apply that, Trans Union nationwide, that that way you wouldn't be getting all these verifications, you would have it blocked, and then they would have to prove that it was not fraud. How about you, Nicole, do you want to tell us your credit bureau suggestions? MS. ROBINSON: Well, you know, since the way the individual who stole my identity got my social, she worked at an HMO, a place that maintained HMO databases, and because her name was Nicole Robinson, she went down, said oh, Nicole Robinson, and she tried out my social, and she hit pay dirt. So, because that information is used in various -- for various things for identification purposes for health insurances, we were just talking about that this morning, that it would be helpful if you cannot block a credit file to have a password or a PIN number, because there would be no way that she would know a password of mine. She would in no way know a PIN number of mine. Protect me from people like her. MR. GENERA: And not the mother's maiden name. That's the biggest mistake. MS. ROBINSON: That's easy, too. MS. FRANK: That's readily available, too. MS. ROBINSON: And especially if you know me, you know my mother's maiden name. So still, my sister wouldn't know my PIN number, my mother wouldn't know my PIN number. So, what would have been helpful is to keep this from happening, put a PIN number or a password on a credit file. MS. FRANK: Eric? MR. GRAVES: I guess I think I answered some of this already, but I don't know, I think because there's three different agencies, it seems like that may be a good thing, because they have different ways of pursuing things rather than just one. MS. FRANK: And they're competitors. MR. GRAVES: Yeah, I understand that, but it is frustrating dealing with three different natures of an organization, and to get the fraud alert out, which we finally did, that was different with all of them, too. It would be nice, I think it was mentioned on here that at the beginning of the sessions that there's one hot number or something to dial to get a fraud alert put on all of them at the same time. Well, I didn't have that benefit in '98 and I don't know if it's active now, I just heard reference to it. And I guess from that standpoint, that would help a lot, and just like I said before, having people ask for the right IDs, you know, and really take their job seriously. Especially these -- I think everybody has referred to these instant credit schemes and everything that people are sending out day after day to people's homes, and I think it just adds to the chaos. MS. FRANK: And I think a lot of the victims that have told me, and I'm sure you've even told me that it would be helpful to have some uniformity in how you read these credit files, because each one is different and it's very difficult to decipher and get through it to have those three credit files a little more uniform and the procedures more uniform so we can work at least for the fraud purposes in the same way. MR. GRAVES: One thing I was just going to ask, in your comments, I think, Mari, you said that in one of your listings here that sometimes when you're doing, as all of us would do, we want to get reports from the credit reporting agencies. And I guess every time you do that, it adds to your, you know, inquiry, and I'm not sure that looks good on a credit report, either, and in some way, I don't know if you can rectify that, I haven't done that myself. MS. FRANK: The consumer inquiries don't go to the commercial lenders, right? They don't see those. So, they don't hurt your credit when you get a consumer inquiry, okay? But the other inquiries from all the fraudulent banks, those are important to get off, because those do hurt your credit. MR. GRAVES: Right. MS. FRANK: Go ahead. MS. ROBINSON: Another thing I may want to add, I found that the procedure, and this goes back to everybody having the same procedure. I called Experian, they were willing to just take my word and take some of the inquiries off. Because I had notified them so quickly, and I think probably about two, three weeks after that, Experian sent me saying that we have deleted this information from your credit file. Trans Union, however, I called them, they would not give me the addresses and phone numbers over the phone. The woman told me she would mail me the addresses, she did not mail me the addresses. Two months later, I received the addresses in the mail. And it was a problem because even after I sent the letter saying that I did not initiate this request, they are still not coming off. And I have harassed the businesses that have done it, and they said we've contacted them. They are still not removing these things quickly. Even though I've done what Trans Union has told me to do, and I followed up with the creditors. They are still not removing this information from my credit file, and this woman had put I think all total 80 inquiries on my credit report between March and June. MS. FRANK: And so one of the things we talked about in our hand-out is we need to have the credit reporting agencies immediately when they're notified of fraud to send out at the addresses and phone numbers of all of the accounts on there, including the inquiries so that we can contact them and get it removed. And they're supposed to contact them, anyone who has been -- any company that has made an inquiry in the last six months, but my understanding is under federal law, you have up to a year to issue credit, and so I think it should be for a year that we give the names and telephone numbers and addresses of all the inquiries for the last year so that immediately, so that you can get those off, like you're talking about. MR. GRAVES: Can I add -- go ahead, Joe. MR. GENERA: If we're talking about consistency, I think the one stop fraud alert is a great idea. To the credit reporting agencies, within your own offices, you need consistency. As an example, Trans Union maintains various offices around the country. On the very same day, I believe it was November 9th of last year, Trans Union generated two credit reports, one from their Fullerton, California office, and one from their West Haven, Connecticut office. One showed two of these judgments being deleted, West Haven office showed one of them being re-inserted on the very same day. MS. FRANK: So, we need consistency and we need training, we need to make sure that all of the credit reporting agencies are training their people in the same procedures. 13 MR. GRAVES: That's what I was going to mention, Joe mentioned, I don't know how these guys did it with as many things that were put on their credits, you know, history, trying to keep track of the reports that you get back, because there's this delay, you know, you're sending a request in to clarify or clear something up, and then maybe you receive -- like in my case, I maybe didn't see the next thing until I sent two requests in separately, and then you're trying to tie one report with another, and sometimes the two reports cross in the mail and, you know, somehow it's got to be a better way to reference your inquiry to the response you're getting back from the credit reporting agency to tie it with this request. MS. FRANK: If you could be assigned to one person, I think that would make it a lot easier because then there would be consistency like you're talking about, Joe, Rob, is that we're trying to say that one person would be assigned to you so that you could write to that one person and not get mixed messages. Deborah, do you want to add something with regard to the credit reporting agencies, another suggestion? MS. NORTH: My situation just happened this August, and a lot of the people here, they found out a couple of years ago, and I -- what I would say is that I think it's improved with the work of the people here, that the credit bureaus are getting better, because they have been helpful to me, however one suggestion I would have is when you have specific questions about your file, it should be available to you. I mean, you shouldn't have to fight to have a question answered on your file. For example, I noticed a request for a file just a month after a lot of these accounts were opened, or other requests have been made from other financial institutions, and so I had figured that this person was getting turned down because she had run up so much on my credit that she wasn't able to get it, and that would have helped me if they would have told me where that request went to, because if I had known where that request went to, I could have proved that she made the request, not me. And that would help me with the authorities. MR. GENERA: Debbie, not to rain on your parade, and I sincerely hope your report stays as it is, don't count on it. You are so new to this, what happened initially when we first reported it, two of the credit reporting agencies did take off every single account, said delete it, delete it, delete it, in fact on the Trans Union file, because we have everything on the Trans Union, I wrote across in big letters, resolved, we're done, yeah. Uh-uhh, it's still going. MS. NORTH: That's why I want the letters from the creditors, because I know it can pop back up. So, I need those letters from the creditors saying I am clear on this so if they should report it again. And it's not even on that account with the creditors, they don't show it resolved, it's just open, they're going to report me again. So that's why I need those letters. MS. FRANK: That's an important point, and I know quite a few victims had been saying, and I know you also told me on the phone that, you know, under federal law we're entitled to a free credit report if you're a victim, and then of course you get another credit report until things are cleared up. However, the problem is that often the information is re-inserted and the fraud comes back on or the fraudster goes and does it again. So, we were suggesting that a free credit report be provided throughout the clean-up time, and then even when you think it's cleaned up, you should be given quarterly, for one year, at least, a free credit report, quarterly, for one year, after you think the fraud is off, because it does reappear, and that's happened to everyone. And the other thing is we want you to know that you can ask some questions. We do have a roving mike, where is it? I don't know where the roving mike is. It's over there. There's our rover. So, we have two of them, if you want to ask questions. I think we just want you to know that there's a lot more that we're suggesting that is on this sheet, but let's go now to the law enforcement, any suggestions for law enforcement. Why don't we start out with you. MR. GREER: I'm really in the thick of it right now, and the problems I'm having with law enforcement is just getting documentation and cooperation. The assistant DA in the jurisdiction that we contacted that had the warrants against me suggested that I turn myself in and have myself arrested, and that was how I was assisted. I am the victim here, and I initiated the action to correct this problem, and as a reward for that, they sent my name to New Hampshire DMV and I had my license yanked, a second time. Just cooperation, and when somebody comes in good faith, I know it's very difficult to comprehend that, because you have people coming all day long to it's not me, I didn't do it, and I don't know how to differentiate between that, but yanking somebody's license when they're attempting to make good on something that they have just learned about two days prior is not really a cooperative way to do it. MS. FRANK: Okay, so we need -- it would be nice to have some at least national protocol for how do you clean up a criminal record. MR. GREER: Absolutely, it's got to be national or at least very cooperative between jurisdiction, because I'm a New Hampshire resident, the perpetrator is a Massachusetts resident, and there's criminal activity in Alabama as well. MS. FRANK: And this happens quite often. Let's go now to Eric. Did you have any suggestions for law enforcement? MR. GRAVES: Well, I guess because we were suggested to go to the Secret Service, and I was pointed somehow through FBI and Secret Service towards the beginning of this year and somewhat towards the end of the process, and I couldn't believe that I was having to discuss those with them and I knew that my case wasn't going to qualify either, because it wasn't over $100,000, but people wouldn't divulge information. You know, whatever they found, they sort of kept -- because of the different legislation that's been invoked, for rights of privacy, which I can understand to some extent, but when you're sitting on the other side and you feel you're innocent, and you want to get the information that they have found, if any, you know, they say they can't give it to you. And I don't know when they do give it to you, unless they have found something big and then they're going to come and arrest you or something. But -- MS. FRANK: And you know that the imposter, and his or her attorney, if they are apprehended, have a right to all of your information. MR. GRAVES: Exactly. MS. FRANK: The police report and everything including those affidavits that we might have to fill out that are ten pages long, and so it is really frustrating for a victim. MR. GRAVES: And so the West Valley LA -- part of the LAPD, you know, who took my son's complaint, just haven't followed it up. And I just think that they need somebody that's really going to devote time. I don't think it's going to be LAPD, I think it will have to be another branch that's created or something, I can't imagine that they've got -- like I think people have said, there's other things, there's burglaries and such that are, you know, very high priority, right for that instant, and they are going to put you on the bottom. I think it needs to be someone else. MS. FRANK: And they don't have the resources. Go ahead, Nicole. MS. ROBINSON: In my situation, I did talk to the detective whose responsibility it was to handle fraud and he told me that the crime was not against me, that it was against the businesses where she got the merchandise. So, it wasn't against me. He refused to take a police report. He refused. I had to -- after I contacted the FTC, I called back and talked to his supervisor and said I have a right to file a police report. And they knew who this individual was, they had had her in custody, and they still have not filed any charges against her, because out of the four or five police officers that I have talked to in San Antonio, they all said this is not a crime against you. MS. FRANK: And Texas does have an identity theft statute. MS. ROBINSON: And I found that out. MS. FRANK: Besides, we have a federal law, too. So, there is training that is desperately needed for law enforcement. Deborah? We're talking about police here, any suggestions? MS. NORTH: Well, it's difficult because each jurisdiction is unique. So, I don't know what you're going to do, but just like when I called D.C., Nicole and I are both in Maryland, they wouldn't take a report. And they should be required to take a report. There's no reason why you can't make a report. MS. FRANK: And they need to know that without taking a report, we can't clean up the mess with the creditors or the credit reporting agencies, because no one is going to believe us, so that's so critical, even if it's an informational report. Do you want to add anything? MR. GREER: I was just agreeing. MR. GENERA: If I could just add my comment to this as well. MS. FRANK: Sure, I'm sorry. MR. GENERA: Police departments need to take it seriously. In our case, sometimes we have been hit with oh, well, it's just a family dispute. No, there's forgery, identity theft, and it's larceny. In fact in this case, serious larceny, over $50,000. That's a very real issue. It is not just a family dispute. That's it. MS. FRANK: You know, in California, we just passed a law that was signed by our governor to set up a central database for victims so that law enforcement would know that victims are there. What do you all think about setting up a central database with our information with maybe the Federal Trade Commission so that our information is in one place that law enforcement can go into or the creditors or the credit agencies can go into to access our information? MS. CRANE: Let me just explain what our database is right now and then we can talk about what we mean by our information. Right now our database contains the identifying information of the victim, their name, address, and it is optional, you can remain anonymous. It's name, address, social security number and date of birth, if you choose to give that information. We also have similar information collected about the suspects, so if you have any information at all that you believe pertains to the person who you think did this to you, that goes into our database as well. We code the types of identity theft that have affected the victim, whether it's relating to credit cards or utilities, securities and investments, bankruptcy, so we code it by type. We also try to collect information on the date it occurred and the date the victim first noticed, the amount that the suspect got away with, and the amount of loss out of the victim's pocket. If the victim knows how the suspect obtained their information, we code that in there. We also code in as many of the institutions -- well, we code up too five institutions involved. So, if someone has opened 14 accounts in your name, we don't have the time and resources to collect all 14, but we'll take the top five, which by either were the largest accounts or bills run up, or which five did you have the most trouble with in trying to clear your name. So, all that information is in there right now and we do currently share it with law enforcement nationwide through our Consumer Sentinel system, law enforcement can come in and read reports in every system. Now, Mari, what are you asking for in addition to that specifically? MS. FRANK: Well, it probably would help to have all the fraud accounts, that would be helpful, but I think one of the things that would be extremely helpful, would have law enforcement to be trained on how to access that, and so when a victim goes there, they will immediately access that information and give you a report. And perhaps if it's from one state to another, you've got this issue that the database maybe then you could -- the Federal Trade Commission then can help to make sure that the law enforcement agency in Maryland is helping to get the law enforcement agency in Florida involved. MS. CRANE: We have been doing a lot of outreach with police and law enforcement nationwide, and certainly the number of departments that are accessing our database are growing. Once you're on there, it is fairly self explanatory on how to do a search. There are also fields in there on what other law enforcement agencies are involved. So, if the victim has reported it to one or more law enforcement agencies, that police department, that report number, that officer's name and phone number are all in there. So, far as I could tell, we've got everything that you are suggesting. MS. FRANK: Yeah, it's just a matter of getting the word out and having, you know, someone to do that. Any other suggestions with regard to -- the last category is agencies, other agencies. What suggestions do you have, Eric, for example, from the bankruptcy agencies? MR. GRAVES: Well, I still haven't satisfied myself that we've gotten Patrick's credit really cleared, because this bankruptcy case was dismissed, but it's still sitting there in the court as an item. In his history, I think it's -- I'm not sure, but my understanding of reading the credit agency report was that it's cleared, but it's still in history on the credit report, and can be, you know, it's still there for someone to really dig out. I wanted to be able to put a motion forward without hiring a lawyer, sorry, and, you know, do it on our own. I mean I think a lot of people are in my situation where you don't want to have to afford a lawyer, there ought to be a means in the court that you would be put on record, similar to filing a police report, that you are on record to contest this particular person's ID with this case. And I haven't found out how to do that yet, maybe it's very simple, but I haven't found a way. MS. FRANK: We are going to talk about that tomorrow on the bankruptcy panel and I think that's going to be very important, but I think that's a very important issue. MR. GRAVES: When I went to the court, they just had nothing to tell me, that I couldn't do it, and I nabbed some person who looked like a lawyer on the way out and got their suggestions and he of course gave me a couple of suggestions and then hired him. MS. FRANK: One of the important things that I hear of hearing from all the victims and the thousands of victims that I talk to and experience myself, the various agencies that we have to deal with really don't have a protocol, don't have a list of what we have to do in my agency to clean up your name. And I think that each creditor, I mean all the creditors and all the credit reporting agencies, and all of the -- and law enforcement and the courts need to say this is the protocol that you need to have that you need to follow and we'll help you. And they need to set up steps, and they need to train their people so that we know what to do to clean up the mess, to expunge that record, because that record is going to be sold over and over by data brokers, and your son is going to have a bankruptcy all over the place. MR. GRAVES: Well, when we went in to try to rectify this, I think, you know, it boils down to the fact that all of us have experienced, there's one person doing too many jobs, and they don't -- it can't be possible to know all the protocol and procedures, but somehow it has to be disseminated. MS. FRANK: Right. And the other thing that we wanted to talk about for just a minute is when you talked about changing the social security number, a lot of people think that that's the right thing to do, and I think that the Social Security Administration, or hopefully when they speak today, and I know that there's people here from the Social Security Administration. They need to advise you why you shouldn't change your social security number, and see that social security number is attached to you. Maybe for your son isn't so bad because he hasn't this long history. But I've had a client who too had a criminal record who he changed his social security number because his -- he was mixed with a person who had committed crimes, and so to clean up his record, he was told to change his social security number, and it actually worsened the problem, because the old file and the old social security number gets linked in all the different databases, so it looks more suspicious. So, it isn't always the best thing to do. But any agency that's trying to help a victim to clean up your record need to really tell them, the victims, the ramifications of why they aren't doing something. Any other agency that you want to talk about that could have been more helpful? Joe? MR. GENERA: My apologies to our host, the consumer assistance group in Texas, is that a branch of the FTC? MS. CRANE: We have a Dallas southwest regional office, but I'm not sure, it sounds to me like you're talking about a state-level agency. MR. GENERA: No. Kathleen, hand me my life portfolio, please. MS. CRANE: We have a southwest regional office in Dallas, and of course we have our 1-800 hotline. MR. GENERA: We were referred, I believe it was through the FTC, or actually it's the number that shows up on the back of the credit card statements, if this particular creditor is not complying with federal regs, please contact. MS. CRANE: That sounds like it would be a bank, we don't have regulatory authority over banks. MS. CRANE: Okay, there's a hand there, could we get a mike. MR. MIESSNER: That's the Office of the Consumer Credit Division, Austin, Texas. MR. GENERA: Actually, Comptroller of the Currency. Okay, that's who it is. In any case, this was a name and address that shows up on the back of credit card statements that says that if you're being mistreated or whatever, we sent a complaint to them in regards to Citibank, they're one of the remaining ones who has never provided any documentation, will not respond to us. In addition, these same people opened up a checking account to further the fraud and that's how they were servicing these credit accounts for a period. So, we sent the complaint to this agency here, and I'm sorry for -- MS. CRANE: That's OCC, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. MR. GENERA: Yes, I apologize sincerely. The next paragraph on the bank statement also had the FTC list, so I guess I got confused. In any case, we sent a compliant to them asking them if they could force Citibank to comply with the regulations. And I guess they must have misinterpreted our request because they said I'm sorry, actually what it says is as your difficulty with the bank is a subject of litigation, it is inappropriate for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to intervene. Basically what that told us, they did not read our letter. We were not looking for -- we were not looking for them to decide this case, because essentially that's what they say later. It's not up to us to decide whether they were right or wrong, basically we wanted them to decide or to comply with the DA's office so we could decide who was right or wrong and determine from there. So, we wanted to provide who was help with us, and we just got a door slammed. Again our apologies to the FTC. MR. GRAVES: Basically the response that we got back, they obviously didn't read our letter. They had a form sort of thing to send you, but didn't take the time to look at the details. MS. CRANE: Were there any questions from the audience at all? Okay, there are a couple. MS. FRANK: We have some roving mikes over here. MS. FOLEY: Could I ask each of the victims how much time and how much cost out of pocket, not including legal fees necessarily, this has taken from you? MS. CRANE: That question was how much time and how much out-of-pocket expense has this taken from you? MR. GENERA: We calculated over the course of the last over two years, at times, believe it or not, at times at least 40 hours a week in computer -- in computer time, writing, phone calls. In total, about 1,700 hours. There are fees for -- because everything we do, and we have done this since the very beginning, I know this from a previous life, everything we do is certified, we do return receipt requested. So, our postage bills, the time going down to the post office, the money involved with copying, we just put together a 1480-page package for our attorney, and for the district attorney's office. MS FOLEY: Telephone. MR. GENERA: Telephone, faxing, notary. Driving. We have literally driven -- we drove to the court where the -- because we live in Connecticut now and we drove to the court where the judgments are. I mean we've had to drive everywhere. We're talking literally thousands and thousands of dollars, literally thousands of hours, and we're not even close to being done. MS. FOLEY: Unrecoverable. MR. GENERA: Unrecoverable. Well, we'll see. MS. FRANK: Well, it's tax deductible under 165(E) of the U.S. Tax Code, your out-of-pocket costs. MR. GENERA: We don't need tax deductions, unfortunately. MR. GREER: I'm just at the other end of the spectrum. I have probably two or 300 hours into it and my out-of-pocket expenses are really telephone and my time and energy. As far as the accounts, I haven't lost anything to the creditors, but just my time and effort. MR. GENERA: But one thing that we have also lost is Kathleen has had legitimate good credit accounts in her name cancelled because of negative information being reported on her credit account, and you can't put a price on that. MS. FRANK: When I went through my ordeal, it was over 500 hours, and it was ten months to clean up. And by the time I was done, I had spent like $10,000 just in out-of-pocket costs. And we hear people up to 14 years some people. MR. GREER: Actually one other thing I would like to add is the time that you're actually spending on resolving this issue is one thing, but the thought always consumes you. Whenever you're awake, it's always in your forethought, you're thinking about it always. MS. NORTH: I'm relatively new to this, just starting in August, so, and I would really rather not have my employer know how much time I have spent on this, but several days, and of course it's all 9:00 to 5:00, as you know, if you want to do business. So, it makes it very difficult. MS. ROBINSON: I think all told, well I spent the entire summer working on this, every morning through June, July and August, I spent working on this, and because it happened in Texas, I've -- I got like a six-page phone bill, like $500. So, back and forth. Even when I filed the report with the Texas police, they told me they had to call me collect to take my report. So, I had to pay for that as well. So, it's been -- the phone bills have been higher than the postage bills, because I had to do the mailings to everybody who did the inquiries, and like I said, there were 80. So, the phone bills I think were the biggest, but the time spent on the phone, I mean all summer, like 90 days in the summer. MS. FRANK: And of course not getting a human on the other end. MS. ROBINSON: Yes, or getting somebody saying oh, well, we don't handle that, the credit reporting agency has to send us a dispute form and, you know, so it's been a lot of hours. MS. FRANK: Eric? MR. GRAVES: Yeah, I guess I'm at the low end as well, probably 180 hours to 200 I would say, and a lot of it like Deborah said is, you know, unfortunately during 9:00 to 5:00 hours, so you're taking time at work and you've got to, you know, somehow make up that time. And so that's been flexible for me, that's been fortunate. And probably $150, but the big thing is my son's credit. I mean he's young, I wanted to get him on the track of getting a good credit reference, and I think he's lost two years in that process. MS. FRANK: We had some more questions. Could you say who you are and where you're from. That would help us. MS. NEWHOUSE: My name is Joan Newhouse, I am a commissioner for the Texas Commission on Private Security. I'm also a private investigator in Houston. I concentrate on fraud, and so I've got a great business going in Houston right now. My question is that in the course of my investigations, I regularly come across people who are perpetrating identity fraud. I have tried, and I don't know how many occasions to report it, and there is no one who wants the information. In some cases, it is someone who is perpetrating the fraud against the Social Security Administration, and for purposes of welfare, I have faxed them the names with the multiple social security numbers, I get no response. In other instances, someone's credit is being ruined. If it is like in my looking for a witness, I end up finding the person that I am looking for, their identity has been stolen by someone else. I have talked to that person about it, and then contacted the credit agencies and the credit agencies say that I cannot report it unless I am a member of the credit agency, so I have to pay $1,500 a year to be able to report the fraud that is being perpetrated. MS. CRANE: I would like to respond to that just very quickly and also we're coming to the end of our session. As of the beginning of 2001, we will have a designation in our database for third party reporting of identity theft. So, we will be taking complaints from third parties, not just victims. So, please, you know, right now we're developing that, but it should be up by January 1st, and so you'll be able to at least report it to us. And as I said, law enforcement will at least have access and they believe be able to see all of the information that you provide when they log onto our system. Thank you very much, audience, panelists, press, for participating in this event today. Most of our panelists, all of our panelists will be appearing on subsequent panels where their specific experience ties into the issue being discussed, but again, thank you, everyone, very much, particularly panelists for attending and your participation this morning. MS. FRANK: Look at our suggestions here and you can email me with other suggestions and you can talk with us while you are here these two or three days and see what you think. Thank you very much for participating. MS. CRANE: We now have a 15-minute break and we will reconvene at 11:00 for panel 2. Thank you. (A brief recess was taken.) MS. BRODER: Thank you all for returning so promptly to your seats. We're going to try to really run on time today, our time is very valuable, as we have learned on an earlier panel. Now we're going to roll up our sleeves a little bit. We're going to roll up our sleeves a little bit and get to work. This next panel is clearing up the victims' credit history part one. We're going to be moderated today by Helen Foster, who is an attorney in our Division of Planning and Information and is on the staff of our identity theft program, and Christopher Keller, who is an attorney from our Division of Financial Practices, and is himself an expert on the credit laws. And so, Chris and Helen, thank you very much, and thank you all. MS. FOSTER: Thank you. As Betsy mentioned, the focus of this panel will be streamlining and improving the processes of consumer reporting agencies when they are dealing with victims of identity theft. I just want to briefly introduce the panel. And I'm going to start on my far right. We have Nicole Robinson, who you heard from earlier. Well, I'm hoping that she's coming back. Robin Holland from Equifax, Ed Mierzwinski from CALPIRG, Barry Smith from Bank of America, on my immediate right is Chris Keller, my colleague. To my left, Maxine Sweet from Experian, Robert Greer, we missed him, we lost him, he will come back. Diane Terry, from Trans Union, Phil McKee from Internet Fraud Watch, Eric Graves, who we have heard from earlier as a victim of identity theft, and Stuart Pratt from the Associated Credit Bureaus. We're going to begin by talking, we're going to take this in a little bit of reverse order. We're going to begin by talking about consumer reporting agencies dispute processes and the process that a consumer goes through once they have contacted the credit reporting agency, and identify themselves as a victim of identity theft. After that, we will talk about the fraud alert, which we have also heard a little bit about in the previous panel, and then we will move to the proposal for one-stop shop. I know that in the last panel it was mentioned as well as is this something that we have done or is it something that we are going to do. It's still a proposal, it's something that we are really hoping to make progress on today. So, that will be the order of our discussion, and our methodology will be similar to what we pursued in the last panel, where Chris and I will throw out questions and issues and we will ask panelists to join into the discussion and then we will pause to take questions from the floor, as we progress through each topic. And we would ask if you have a question or a comment from the floor that you wait until a microphone gets to you before you start to speak. Now we have Nicole Robinson and Robert Greer. Okay, in the last panel, we heard quite a bit about reporting processes and dispute processes by the consumer report agencies, and I wanted to start by giving the consumer reporting agencies a chance to tell us a little bit about how their processes actually work. And like I said, we're kind of starting backwards, but after a fraud alert has been placed on a consumer's report, and when they're dealing with the individual items on their credit report, Maxine or Diane, could you speak to exactly what they can expect to experience at that point in terms of resolving individual items on their credit report. MS. SWEET: I'll start. Just briefly, let me -- we do have different processes, so it's good that we're all three here, although they are somewhat standard and they don't vary significantly, there are just some minor differences. But the Experian standpoint, when you contact us and a fraud alert goes on immediately, but it's a 90-day temporary fraud alert, and we wait for you to send us proof of your identity before we put a permanent alert on there. And again, that's one of those you have to make people work harder to protect them. So, if you send us proof of your identity, then we will put a permanent statement on that stays seven years. I was very encouraged to hear the FTC clearinghouse talk about not only sending victims to the credit reporting agencies, but also letting them know that they need to contact the creditors and to fill out the affidavits and documents there, because that to me is a very important part of the process. Yes, they should contact the credit reporting company, obviously we're very important in letting you be aware of what may have gone on, and yes we will dispute the fraudulent items on your behalf back to the creditor, but victims should be informed it is very important that they also contact the creditor directly. MS. FOSTER: So, once they have done those two, I don't mean to interrupt you, once they have done those two steps, what can they expect in terms of how the procedure works in disputing each item? MS. SWEET: Okay, they let us know which ones are fraudulent, we send a notice to the creditor that it is flagged as a fraud dispute, and then the creditor comes back to us and hopefully removes the fraudulent accounts from the creditor's report. We then send a new report back to the consumer as some of the victims noted earlier, letting them know the results of that. MS. FOSTER: Once -- when you communicate with a creditor about -- and I'm not addressing this to just Maxine, any of the consumer reporting representatives can feel free to answer. Once you are communicating with the creditor, do you communicate that this account has been identified as a victim of identity theft, or someone has said that this is not my account, because I understand that there are different ways that someone can have incorrect information on a consumer report. It can be that the information was generally mixed because there were similar names or other kinds of identification errors and then there's the separate problem of someone who has purposefully gone out and gotten credit in your name, so I am just wondering how those differences are accounted for in dealing with a creditor, because that seems to be helpful for creditors to know. MS. TERRY: Diane Terry from Trans Union. What we have established is a fraud department, and in that department, one of the processes is as we are talking about the consumer, we are adding t |