Anyone following the ChoicePoint Identity Theft Scandal?

[yellowcanine]

This sucker is blowing wide open - apparently ChoicePoint allowed identity thieves access to thousands of individual files nationwide.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050221/ap_on_bi_ge/choicepoint_identity_theft_8


Yesterday I heard that ChoicePoint is offering defrauded individuals free credit checks as compensation. How big of them. I can tell you one thing. If my data ended up in the hands of criminals as a result of ChoicePoint's incompetence it is going to take a lot more than a free credit check to make me happy.

[JanMichael]

1. State Farm uses ChoicePoint for their data on traffic violations

I know, because they showed me as having a speeding ticket; I threw a goddamned fit.

My agent has known me since the 90's and I have been with SF for 23 freaking years....

[Walt Starr]

2. Why should Choicepoint care? It's not like a class action lawsuit will

be filed against them or anything. They have blanket protection from the Corporate Whore Government.

[elehhhhna]

3. I loved when they only notified customers in CA, 'cuz "CA law requires it"

[RebelOne]

6. I heard on the radio this morning that people here

in Georgia will be notified.

[woodsprite]

7. Supposedly over 1000 people here in DE will be notified also. n/t

[elehhhhna]

9. Yes, due to the press cov. about only informing Californians.

They were shamed into doing the "right thing". Weird how The Right Thing is only resorted to as damage control with these Orwellian bastards.

[ladjf]

4. Is this the same company that sent the bogus felony

voting rolls to Florida?

[yellowcanine]

5. Yep - that's them. They also provide driving records for insurance

companies. Accuracy is not their concern. It is up to the customer to sort out the mistakes.

[ladjf]

8. They also sent list of foreign gov ts. prior to their elections

to be used just as they were in Florida. This is a major criminal operation and needs to be shutdown permanently and with large fines and jail sentences. Major, felonious crimes! The changed the outcome of an American presidential election. How major can a crime be?

Slightly changing the subject: I was a database administrator for a major telecom company and was instructed by my superior to send a list of 220,000 of our customers names, credit card numbers and banking information, including PINs to a person at a bank in North Carolina. I refused to do this as it was an obvious risk of the customers credit security. My superior threatened to fire me over the refusal. However, when the people over him found out, they fired him instead of me.

[peacetalksforall]

10. Wasn't Choicepoint the choice of Katherine Harris when they chose

how they were going to dump voters in Florida? Nothing happened to Jeb. What's the big deal about identity compared to a vote?

What a mess we're in.

[BillyDoc]

11. My Buddy just had to cancel his credit card

because of identy theft. He lives in Florida. Could this be related?

[yellowcanine]

12. ChoiicePoint is all over the country - and it is not just voting lists and

credit reports. They do a big business in collecting driver's records for insurance companies, as well. If you have ever had your auto insurance canceled because of a speeding ticket, chances ar the insurance company was tipped off by ChoicePoint.

[truth2power]

13. Heard this from a friend of mine. Strange story.

Her sister was the victim of identity theft. Seems the sister deposited her paycheck in the bank and discovered a few days later her entire account had been cleaned out.

She found out that it was a ring or something that was using a credit card in Calif. with a phony name but the sister's acct. #. (Sister lives in the Midwest.) Later, and this is the weird part, her sister found out that a small plumbing company on the EAST coast had discovered, the previous weekend, 8 or 10 charges (charges isn't really the word), something on their books, all for about $22.00 from a number of different credit card accounts. The boss was trying to find out what was going on.

There is NO reason to believe the small company was a part of this in any way. The best she could figure was that the theft "ring" was checking somehow to see if the accounts were active before using them. This is really perplexing. I don't know enough about credit fraud to really understand this.

Anyone know what that's all about?