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Contact Information

Center for Identity Management
and Information Protection
Dr. Donald Rebovich,
Executive Director
315.792.3231
drebovich@utica.edu
Utica University
1600 Burrstone Road
Utica, NY 13502

Identity Theft News



Chicago Tribune , November 28, 2015

Man charged with stealing Deerfield resident's identity in credit card scheme


By Steve Sadin


Matthew T. Maciejewski, 35, of Chicago, was arrested by Deerfield police Nov. 13 and charged with identity theft and fraudulent use of a credit card. He was picked up in Harwood Heights on a warrant issued six months earlier by a Lake County Criminal Court judge, according to Deerfield police reports. ...read full article
November 6, 2015

2 arrested in Oakhurst during identity theft investigation


By Troy Pope


Two Oakhurst residents were arrested Tuesday during an investigation into a string of burglaries, identity theft and fraud, the Madera County Sheriff's Office said. ...read full article
November 5, 2015

Child Identity Theft: Your Child Could Be Next


By Isabella Moller


It's becoming more common for hackers to take this personal information and use it as their own. And now they've schemed something else, taking your child's identity. ...read full article
November 5, 2015

Cab driver accused of identity theft enters guilty plea


By Jason Knowles


A cab driver accused of stealing passenger debit and credit cards has entered a guilty plea. The ABC7 I-Team exposed the driver and the elaborate scheme a year ago. That cab driver in question faced several counts of felony identity theft. ...read full article
October 27, 2015

Thomson Reuters Releases Guide to Helping Tax Identity Theft Victims


By Michael Cohn


Thomson Reuters has published a guide for tax professionals whose clients have been victimized by tax-related identity theft. PPC's Guide to Tax-Related Identity Theft covers various aspects of identity theft, from verification to monitoring and alerting the appropriate agencies and authorities, to help tax practitioners act on behalf of clients. ...read full article
October 22, 2015

Waynesboro Man Charged with Identity Theft from Family Member


By NBC29 News


Waynesboro Police Department News Release: The Waynesboro Police Department has charged a Waynesboro man with several felonies after an unauthorized summer spending spree with a relative's credit card. ...read full article
October 22, 2015

IRS will share tax-filing info to fight identity theft


By Kay Bell


One security move is ensuring that federal and state tax agencies, along with the tax industry that helps millions of individuals file their returns each year, have all the information they need to fight identity thieves. ...read full article
September 29, 2015

GOP lawmaker backs bill to combat identity theft


By Cory Bennett


A House Republican wants to reduce identity theft by keeping Social Security numbers off many federal tax forms. Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) has introduced the Taxpayer Identity Protection Act, which would let companies use an alternative to the Social Security number on the W-2 tax form, issued to every employee earning at least $600 a year. ...read full article
September 29, 2015

How to keep scammers from pulling an ID theft double whammy


By Adam Levin


When it comes to data security and the real-life impact of identity theft, public awareness is at an all-time high. But there is still great confusion and ignorance about what it is, how it happens, and what can be done to avoid the pitfalls of life after a data breach or personal compromise. ...read full article
September 29, 2015

Identity theft hit 7% of U.S. population last year


By Martyn Williams


Almost 18 million people were victims of identity theft in the United States last year, with the majority of crimes targeting credit cards and bank accounts, the Department of Justice said Sunday. ...read full article
September 7, 2015

Ohio AG: Complaints of Identity Theft Top 3,500


By Sean Rowe


The state's attorney general says his office got more than 3,500 complaints of identity theft over the first three years of a special unit designed to thwart it. ...read full article
September 7, 2015

Logan care giver guilty of aggravated identity theft


By Staff Report


A Logan County home care giver pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court this week to identity theft and agreed to serve a 24 month prison sentence and agreed to pay restitution in the amount of $56,543.93 announced United States Attorney John E. Kuhn, Jr. Crystal Hullett, age 38, of Russellville, pleaded guilty to five counts of aggravated identity theft before U.S. District Judge Greg Stivers on Sept. 2, 2015. ...read full article
September 7, 2015

Congressman is tax ID theft victim


By Kay Bell


Identity theft has become an epidemic, claiming more than 10 million victims in the past 5 years, according to the Federal Trade Commission. You can add 1 more particularly ironic victim to the 2015 tax ID theft list: Rep. Jason Chaffetz ...read full article
August 26, 2015

Experts warn children could be vulnerable for ID theft


By Deanna Dewberry


As you prepare to send your kids back to school, experts warn you need to think about more than supplies, clothes and bus schedules. You also need to think about identity theft. ...read full article
August 10, 2015

Identity theft complaints up sharply, agencies say


By Patricia Sabatini


With a record number of data breaches reverberating across the nation last year, identity theft zoomed to the top as the fastest-growing complaint reported by state and local consumer protection agencies in 2014, according to a just-released survey by the Consumer Federation of America. ...read full article
August 7, 2015

Smartwatches Present Opportunities for Identity Theft


By Dondi Tiples


Researchers from the University of New Haven in Connecticut have conducted a study to show how easy it would be for hackers to steal personal information from smartwatches. ...read full article
August 5, 2015

By nearly any measure, sunny South Florida is tops in fraud


By Curt Anderson


Need a phony ID? A fraudulent tax refund? Insurance money from a sham car crash? Florida may have just what you’re looking for. Since the first settlers hacked their way into the mangrove tangles and drained much of the swampland, sunny South Florida has been virtually synonymous with shady deals and scams. ...read full article
August 5, 2015

Identity theft packs an emotional toll


By Susan Ladika


Fear, anger, sleep disturbances, problems concentrating. They're all common reactions for victims of violent crime. But they're also likely to strike if you've been the victim of identity theft. With identity theft, "We often measure the toll strictly in dollars and cents," says Eva Velasquez, CEO of the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC). "I think we need to stop minimizing the emotional impact it has." ...read full article
July 29, 2015

Man convicted of identity theft, fake organizations for veterans


By Austin Baird


For the better part of three years, Alan Michael Bartlett of Owosso, Mich., was the leader of U.S. Disabled Veterans, LLC and U.S. Handicapped-Disadvantaged Services, LLC. ...read full article
July 27, 2015

Facial recognition software helps state fight ID fraud


By Paul Giblin


The Arizona Department of Transportation has increased the number of potential fraudulent ID cases it has detected by about 860 percent, on average, since implementing facial-recognition technology earlier this year. ...read full article
July 10, 2015

San Antonio women indicted for wire fraud, identity theft


By Dawns Brooks


A San Antonio woman was indicted Wednesday by a grand jury in connection with wire fraud and identity theft. ...read full article
July 6, 2015

IRS Combats Identity Theft, Protects Taxpayers in Collaborative Effort


By St. George News


The IRS joined Thursday with representatives of tax preparation and software firms, payroll and tax financial product processors and state tax administrators to announce a sweeping collaborative effort to combat identity theft refund fraud and protect the nation’s taxpayers. ...read full article
July 6, 2015

Feds take action against sellers of non-existent credit or identity theft monitoring service


By Jennifer Abel


Today the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, announced an action against two “credit card add-on product vendors” — sellers of services such as identity theft protection or credit monitoring — for billing customers for add-on services they never actually received. ...read full article
July 6, 2015

A new early warning of identity theft is proposed


By Annamaria Androits


Sen. Schumer on Monday sent a letter to Equifax EFX -0.44%, Experian and TransUnion, the country’s three largest credit-reporting firms, asking them to implement a system that will notify consumers when someone is trying to get a loan or other type of credit in their name. If the consumers didn’t request the credit, they would have an early indication that their information had been compromised. Consumers should have the option of signing up for these alerts, the senator says. ...read full article
July 2, 2015

Sen. Casey Pushes Identity Theft Bill


By Torsten Ove


Highlighting data showing that Pennsylvania is second in the nation for incidents of identity theft, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., on Thursday pushed for passage of a bill that he said would help prevent ID theft and improve the response of the IRS to identity theft-related tax fraud. ...read full article
May 6, 2015

The burgeoning business of identity protection


By Ericka Chickowski


Services that monitor credit reports and help protect consumers from fraud are proliferating. But are the fees they charge worth it, and can they really guard against identity theft? ...read full article
May 6, 2015

9 States With The Most Identity Theft Complaints


By Thomas C. Frohlich & Mark Lieberman


In 2014, data theft reached record levels. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, there were 783 data breaches last year, a substantial increase from both the previous year and the previous 2010 peak ...read full article
May 6, 2015

IRS sets up dedicated cybercrime unit to combat identity theft


By Charlie Osborne


The US Internet Revenue Service has launched a new unit dedicated to tackling the rising rate of identity theft through hacking. ...read full article
April 27, 2015

At this pace, Medicare won't stop identity theft


By THE EDITORIAL BOARD


Medicare officials are going to protect 50 million elderly and disabled enrollees from identity theft. Someday. Unfortunately, middle-aged identity thieves will likely hit Medicare age before the change ...read full article
April 27, 2015

Local Woman Upset With IRS Over Identity Theft Case


By Sarah Schwabe


Betty Williams says it's been more than a year since it happened, and the IRS still hasn't cleared everything up. ...read full article
April 22, 2015

“I’m livid:” Victim of identity theft gets notice from IRS, her tax refund may be going to someone else


By Bret Lemoine


A truly “taxing” experience for a Franklin woman who is the victim of identity theft. She didn’t know it until she got a letter in the mail from the IRS. Her tax refund could be going to someone else, and she’s not the only victim dealing with a mess like this. ...read full article
April 20, 2015

Child identity theft on the rise


By Janice O'Shea


Identity theft is on the rise, but it might not be what you expect. ...read full article
April 18, 2015

Income tax identity theft season isn't over yet


By Steve Weisman


he April 15th deadline for the filing of federal income taxes has come and gone, but if you have become a victim of income tax identity theft this tax season, your problems have only just begun ...read full article
April 17, 2015

Identity Theft Poses Extra Troubles for Children


By Ron Lieber


she may have fallen victim to thieves who gained access to Social Security numbers and other personal data from the health insurance giant Anthem ...read full article
April 13, 2015

Almost 800,000 victims of identity theft over past year


By John Collett


More than 772,000 people, or 5 per cent of the adult population of Australia, have been the victims of identity theft over the past 12 months. ...read full article
April 13, 2015

Why Identity Theft Victims Wait 9 Months for Their Tax Refund


By Christine DiGangi


Hundreds of thousands of taxpayers experience significantly delayed refunds every year because of tax-related identity theft. That delay lasted an average of 278 days ...read full article
April 9, 2015

Florida identity theft capital of US



Federal Trade Commission figures quoted by the Justice Department said Florida had the highest rate of identity theft of anywhere in the US in 2013 and 2014, with 186.3 complaints per 100,000 residents. ...read full article
April 6, 2015

Identity theft a problem as tax deadline nears


By Caleb Calhoun


there is one problem that has continued to grow over the years — identity theft ...read full article
April 5, 2015

How to prevent identity fraud at tax time


By Jeff Reeves


But even more frustrating is paying your taxes to what you think is the IRS, only to discover later that you've been a victim of fraud. ...read full article
April 5, 2015

Better Business Bureau: Identity theft a persistent threat


More than 300,000 identity theft complaints in 2014


By The Better Business Bureau


This is not a boy-who-cried-wolf situation. ID thieves are not imaginary predators. They are attacking their victims continuously and the need is for heightened diligence on the part of the public. ...read full article
March 30, 2015

Report: Identity theft and fraud complaints soared in Pennsylvania in 2014


By Michael Goldberg


The number of identity theft and fraud complaints reported by Americans continues to soar, and Pennsylvania ranks in the top third of U.S. states when it comes to such catalogued criminal activity ...read full article
March 28, 2015

New kind of identity theft you haven't heard of


By Selena Maranjian


There's not just a single kind of identity theft, though. There's one kind in particular that has been happening more often lately. You probably don't know about it and you definitely should. It's medical identity theft. ...read full article
March 26, 2015

Identity Theft Victim Spends 32 Days in Jail


By Christine DiGangi


A Georgia man says he spent 32 days in a Missouri jail for crimes a former roommate committed. It was a case of identity theft ...read full article
March 23, 2015

Alleged hacker brought to N.J. on charges of large-scale identity theft


By Paul Milo


A Romanian man has been extradited to the United States where he will face charges that he oversaw a computer hacking scheme in which he obtained at least several thousand user names, passwords and credit and debit card numbers, the office of U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said in a statement. ...read full article
March 23, 2015

Lubbock man reports identity theft after filing taxes online


By Gloria DeLeon


Karl Craig filed his taxes this year using an online system as he always has, but this year something changed. ...read full article
March 19, 2015

Your Credit Report And Identity Theft: What You May Not Know


By Marc Weber Tobias


Identity theft is a threat to anyone that has interaction with virtually any segment of the financial infrastructure, because the system validates who you are (and ultimately extends credit) based upon certain identifying information. ...read full article
March 17, 2015

Someone Filed a False Tax Return in Your Name. What Now?


By Kira Brecht


It's not just credit and debit cards that cyber hackers are after these days. Criminals are also using stolen personal information to file fraudulent tax returns and receive tax refunds ...read full article
March 16, 2015

Anthem hack spurs spike in ID theft insurance


By Alan Goforth


The Target data security breach during the 2013 holiday season was a tremor that shook businesses and consumers into heightened awareness of cyber theft. The more recent Anthem breach has been a major aftershock. ...read full article
March 15, 2015

What's most dangerous kind of identity theft?


By Patricia Oliver


Like the thieves behind the crime, identity theft can take on many disguises depending on the information stolen ...read full article
March 1, 2015

What We Could Have Done With the $5.8 Billion the Government Lost to Tax ID Theft


By Adam Levin


Imagine you were President, or Speaker of the House, and one day you woke up and discovered that you had an extra $5.8 billion dollars to spend. What would you do with the cash? ...read full article
March 1, 2015

Federal Trade Commission: Identity theft once again the top consumer complaint


By CNN Wire Service


There’s no doubt it’s a scary situation when it happens. If a criminal gets his hands on some personal information, it can wreak havoc on your life. ...read full article
February 23, 2015

Senior Corner: Be Aware of Tax Identity Theft


By Amber Nightingale


Every two seconds, someone’s identity is stolen. And with tax season upon us, con artists are stealing Social Security numbers to file for fraudulent tax refunds. ...read full article
February 23, 2015

Stolen Identity: 2.3 Million Americans Suffer Medical ID Theft


By Julianne Pepitone


Medical identity theft is one of the most costly, confusing and potentially dangerous types of fraud -- and a new study shows it's on a sharp rise. ...read full article
January 26, 2015

Be on the Lookout for Identity Theft This Tax Season



Tax identity theft and refund fraud are a serious concern. Learn more about the problem, ways to avoid it, and what to do if you are victimized. ...read full article
January 22, 2015

Former Owner of Multiple Tax Franchise Stores Jailed for ID Theft



The former owner of multiple tax franchise stores has been sentenced to two years in prison for identity theft. She was indicted in June on 10 counts of aggravated identity theft and 10 counts of using other people’s Social Security numbers, which she stole from clients. ...read full article
January 11, 2015

Study Suggests New Yorkers Are in Denial of Identity Theft Risk



The failure to use complex passwords to protect electronic devices, or even omission of passwords altogether, has left New Yorkers at risk for identity theft victimization, according to a recent study. Donald Rebovich, executive director of the Center for Identity Management and Information Protection at Utica College, addressed this troubling finding in a recent article. ...read full article
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