Latest Identity Fraud Scams

Identity fraud scams are on the rise.

Clever identity thieves are taking advance of unsuspecting victims in an ever-increasing variety of ways... many of which involve high-tech elements.

Here are a few real-life cases.

In California, a woman pleaded guilty to federal charges of using a stolen Social Security number to obtain thousands of dollars in credit, and then filing for bankruptcy in the name of her victim.

In Illinois, a man pleaded guilty to federal charges and was sentenced to 27 months imprisonment. He had obtained private bank account information about an insurance company's policy holders and used that information to write $764,000 in counterfeit checks.

In California, two defendants pleaded guilty to identity theft, bank fraud, and related charges for their roles in a scheme to open bank accounts with both real and fake identification documents, deposit U.S. Treasury checks that were stolen from the mail, and withdraw funds from those accounts.

In Florida, a defendant was indicted on bank fraud charges for obtaining names, addresses, and Social Security numbers from a Web site and using those to apply for a series of car loans over the Internet.

Also in  Florida, a woman pleaded guilty to federal charges involving her obtaining a fraudulent driver's license in the name of the victim, using the license to withdraw more than $13,000 from the victim's bank account, and obtaining five department store credit cards in the victim's name and charging approximately $4,000 on those cards.

In Kansas, a defendant pleaded guilty to conspiracy, odometer fraud, and mail fraud for operating an odometer "rollback" scheme on used cars.  The defendant used false and assumed identities, including the identities of deceased persons, to obtain false identification documents and fraudulent car titles.

Whereas in another case after a seven-week trial at Chelmsford Crown Court, three defendants and two accomplices who had plundered the identities of the living and the dead were found guilty of conspiracy to defraud. The gang had forged driving licenses, pay slips, and utility bills to steal the identities of real people who had previously lived in properties that were now vacant and up for sale. Operating from Colchester, Haverhill in Suffolk and East London, the gang stole the identities of 60 people across the country and used them to take out bank loans, overdrafts and credit cards.

Typical identity fraud cases such as these require enormous amounts of police resources to investigate, and the crime often crosses jurisdictions, making it more difficult to coordinate the investigations. It can therefore be difficult to detect and time-consuming to unravel.