Speaker 1: About ten years ago, Louise Chew was a reporter at
Speaker 1: the Associated Press. At work, she and her colleagues would
Speaker 1: skim the district attorney's press releases every day to see
Speaker 1: which court cases were coming up. It was just another
Speaker 1: Saturday and Louise was enjoying her day off. That's when
Speaker 1: she got an email from a coworker. And my colleague
Speaker 1: at the time was doing the daily court checks and
Speaker 1: he checked the press release for this district attorney's office
Speaker 1: and saw a case with my name on it, and
Speaker 1: he forwarded to me as a friendly joke, just kind
Speaker 1: of going like, ha ha, what are you doing? After hours?
Speaker 1: The charges against Louise's namesake included armed robbery, prostitution, and
Speaker 1: drug possession. In any other situation, Louise would have just
Speaker 1: laughed it off. But five months before, her wallet was
Speaker 1: stolen in a San Francisco mall. The thief had gone
Speaker 1: an open bank accounts and her name and was overdrawing them.
Speaker 1: She was starting to receive collection notices. When I saw
Speaker 1: the email in my inbox, I was like, Oh, my gosh,
Speaker 1: is this related to that. I opened the email and
Speaker 1: I checked the charges and it was my exact birthday,
Speaker 1: So I knew immediately that something was wrong. Using some
Speaker 1: of her reporter contacts, she got in touch with the
Speaker 1: attorney in charge of the case. He told her it
Speaker 1: was normal protocol to prosecute the defendant under the name
Speaker 1: they were using when they got arrested. I continued to
Speaker 1: get press releases with my name on it. Um. So
Speaker 1: about two months went by with you know, first it
Speaker 1: was the charges, then it was a court date, and
Speaker 1: it was a plea, and I, you know, slowly getting updates.
Speaker 1: When it got all the way to a plea and
Speaker 1: a sentencing, I started getting really worried. UM. So I
Speaker 1: decided to go down to the court myself and attend
Speaker 1: the sentencing sentencing to make sure that it was not
Speaker 1: going to be Louise Cho who was sentenced to these charges.
Speaker 1: Is did the woman show up? She was. She was
Speaker 1: in custody the entire time. Did you get to meet her?
Speaker 1: I did not meet her, but I definitely I witnessed
Speaker 1: my own sentencing, so to speak. I sat in the
Speaker 1: peanut gallery while she stood up in front of the
Speaker 1: court as Louise chew and you know, pleaded no contest
Speaker 1: to the charges, watching her imposter gets sentenced to two
Speaker 1: years in prison. Louise realized she really needed a hustle,
Speaker 1: and she narrowly avoided becoming a convicted felon that day
Speaker 1: by filling out some crucial paperwork something called a judicial
Speaker 1: declaration of innocence before she left the courthouse. But it
Speaker 1: took Louise seven years to fully reclaim her identity. She
Speaker 1: continued to fight collection agency after collection agency as they
Speaker 1: hounded her and even her relatives for the unpaid bills
Speaker 1: from all kinds of things that she never bought. I
Speaker 1: am brad Stone and I'm Lazette Chapman, and this week Undercrypted,
Speaker 1: we're talking about identity theft as we begin to understand
Speaker 1: the potential fallout from a devastating cyber attack on the
Speaker 1: credit bureau Equifax. The hackers still highly sensitive information on
Speaker 1: one three million Americans. In the past, identity theft victims
Speaker 1: had their credit cards, I d s, and Social Security
Speaker 1: cards taken from them. Physically, Luise had her purse snatched
Speaker 1: in a shopping mall. The Equifax hack stole all that information,
Speaker 1: but on an epic scale. We probably won't understand the
Speaker 1: full impact of the consequences for years to come. We'll
Speaker 1: talk to experts about what you can do to protect
Speaker 1: your identity, not just because of the breach at Equifax,
Speaker 1: but the tons of other data heights that have left
Speaker 1: so many Americans vulnerable over the years. Stay with us,
Speaker 1: all right, Breaking news this morning one of the bigest
Speaker 1: security breaches in history, and there's a very good chance
Speaker 1: your personal information has been breached. Credit In September seven,
Speaker 1: Equifax announced that it was hacked. Stens this morning about
Speaker 1: a massive breach at the credit monitoring company Equifax, and
Speaker 1: some experts are saying it could be the largest single
Speaker 1: breach in US history. Equifax, of course, is one of
Speaker 1: the three big consumer credit reporting agencies in the US.
Speaker 1: That means Equifax is basically a vault full of most
Speaker 1: American consumers most sensitive financial information. How big a deal
Speaker 1: is this? I mean a hundred million people. That's pretty
Speaker 1: much everybody in America, isn't it? Every day we're learning
Speaker 1: more about what exactly happened, But we still don't know
Speaker 1: two really important things. Who was behind the attack and
Speaker 1: where that stolen data is now? Right, but the federal
Speaker 1: authorities are working with the FBI and have opened a
Speaker 1: criminal investigation. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission,
Speaker 1: and at least thirty four state attorney generals have also
Speaker 1: opened inquiries. Congress is due to question the CEO, Richard
Speaker 1: Smith on October three. I doubt he's looking forward to
Speaker 1: that day. Yeah, but you know, this is hardly the
Speaker 1: first data breach. That's true. Hacks have increased in severity
Speaker 1: and scope in recent years. Some of the names that
Speaker 1: spring to mind home Depot, Target, Yahoo, Anthem all getting
Speaker 1: targeted and compromised. Now, these other hacks, they stole email addresses,
Speaker 1: credit card numbers, and phone numbers. But you know, Brad,
Speaker 1: like we were talking about earlier, this this Equifax breach,
Speaker 1: it was worth right because it touched so many people.
Speaker 1: Equifax keeps records on everything from your credit card spending
Speaker 1: to your mortgage free payments, and the company is your address,
Speaker 1: your birthday, driver's license number, and crucially your Social Security number,
Speaker 1: all of which was compromised in this breach or potentially
Speaker 1: breaches plural. The unfortunate reality is that the system we
Speaker 1: have has really elevated the importance of the Social Security number.
Speaker 1: Is an identify fire to to the peak. That's Eva Velasquez.
Speaker 1: She's the president and CEO of the Identity Theft Resource Center,
Speaker 1: a nonprofit that helps victims of identity theft. It is
Speaker 1: the holy Grail of identifiers and it should not carry
Speaker 1: as much weight as it does, but it does. So
Speaker 1: it is what you can use to open lines of
Speaker 1: credit and really establish an identity in a lot of areas.
Speaker 1: So again, medical can provide it to law enforcement, and
Speaker 1: if there's a criminal issue that's occurred, um you can
Speaker 1: use it to apply for government benefits and file taxes.
Speaker 1: So it's very very open. What can be done with
Speaker 1: the social Security number. Louise choose story that you heard
Speaker 1: about earlier is a good example of this, because our
Speaker 1: social Security card was in the wallet that was stolen
Speaker 1: from her. Access to that number was what allowed the
Speaker 1: thieves to do so much damage. Eva says the Equifax
Speaker 1: breach makes people even more unerable than a typical pickpocketing
Speaker 1: because most people don't carry their Social Security card with them.
Speaker 1: Identity theft isn't something we think about a lot, but
Speaker 1: especially now that Equifax has been hacked, it's something we
Speaker 1: all need to confront. Identity fraud of facts fifteen point
Speaker 1: four million US consumers last year, which was a record
Speaker 1: high and at increase just from two thousand and eleven.
Speaker 1: That's according to a study from Javelin Strategy and Research.
Speaker 1: So the Equifax breach is massive in comparison. It's huge. Now,
Speaker 1: we're not saying that every person who's information was stolen
Speaker 1: will suffer identity theft, but disturbingly, and this is the
Speaker 1: part that freaked me out when we were reporting this out,
Speaker 1: is that the fallout doesn't appear right away. Usually it
Speaker 1: comes out in dribs and drabs over many months and years.
Speaker 1: Right in some cases, it can take decades to finally
Speaker 1: end a case of identity theft, giving the thief time
Speaker 1: to commit o our idea of crimes. And that's part
Speaker 1: of the torture. I would say about five years, after
Speaker 1: about five years had passed, UM, the account started falling
Speaker 1: away and my credit score came back at the lowest.
Speaker 1: My FICO score was down into like the five range.
Speaker 1: So luckily I didn't have to take out any loans
Speaker 1: or I didn't need any of those pieces um at
Speaker 1: the time, it would have been impossible. That was Louise
Speaker 1: who we met earlier, but she's not the only one.
Speaker 1: Here's Molly Leisure. Her wallet was stolen out of her
Speaker 1: purse back in two thousand. Every time I think I
Speaker 1: had had it solved, something else would pop up, or
Speaker 1: I'd get a letter, or I'd get a you know,
Speaker 1: a towing notice, or I'd get a another citation in
Speaker 1: the mail. And I took a really long time, I
Speaker 1: mean two years from the date of the of the
Speaker 1: original theft, you know, for it to stop. And so
Speaker 1: there was just that for a long time. I lived
Speaker 1: with that feeling like waiting for the other shoe to drop. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, when is this going to end? In Molly's case,
Speaker 1: the thief was able to get a California driver's license
Speaker 1: with all of Molly's information. When Molly visited the d
Speaker 1: m V to resolve the matter, it was like a
Speaker 1: punch to the gut there, you know, I'm I was
Speaker 1: standing there at the d m B counter saying no,
Speaker 1: I'm no, I'm Molly, and they said, well, this is
Speaker 1: this is Molly, pointing to the picture of this woman.
Speaker 1: And so for me to have to jump through all
Speaker 1: these hoops to prove who I was was very disconcerting.
Speaker 1: The thief used Molly's I D to open bank accounts
Speaker 1: past thousands of dollars in bad checks, get a car
Speaker 1: loan and rack up parking tickets, bridge toll evasions, and
Speaker 1: generally just rereak havoc on Molly's life. Her credit score
Speaker 1: and her peace of mind were ruined. I had definitely
Speaker 1: moments of panic where what if I can't prove that
Speaker 1: this isn't me? And you know what, A I can't
Speaker 1: get this sort of out? What if this is going
Speaker 1: to follow me forever? Ronnie Bogel's fight was much longer
Speaker 1: and messier. When Ronnie was eighteen, his older brother, Gary
Speaker 1: Wayne Bogel, stole the paper copies of his birth certificate
Speaker 1: and Social Security card out of their grandmother's bible. Today,
Speaker 1: Ronnie is forty six, so he's been dealing with the
Speaker 1: fallout for decades. He couldn't get an apartment or a
Speaker 1: cell phone, or buy a car in his own name.
Speaker 1: It took a huge toll in his life and his health.
Speaker 1: Just I mean, it's complete emotional collapse, um emotionally in
Speaker 1: physical collapse at one point, I think. But when I
Speaker 1: was twenty one, was around twenty one, I was so
Speaker 1: emotionally drained, uh that I was hospitalized for such things
Speaker 1: like dehydration from buying so much and being so depressed.
Speaker 1: That sounds terrible, but it's not uncommon at all. People
Speaker 1: talk a lot about the financial impact fraudsters have stolen
Speaker 1: an estimated hundred and twelve billion dollars in the last
Speaker 1: six years alone, but the emotional toll is equally or
Speaker 1: possibly even more damaging. According to a survey conducted by
Speaker 1: the Identity Theft Resource Center, at the end of seventeen
Speaker 1: percent of the three people surveyed, seventeen percent reported it
Speaker 1: ending a relationship with their significant other, and eight percent
Speaker 1: of those people reported feeling suicidal. I liken the experience
Speaker 1: to having a condition sort of like chronic pain. This
Speaker 1: is Louise again. It was the the onslaught of these
Speaker 1: collections notices and UM, the shame of not being able
Speaker 1: to get a new credit card, having my credit cards declined. UM.
Speaker 1: Collections agencies would come after me on a weekly basis UM,
Speaker 1: and some of the more unscrupulous ones would threaten me. UM.
Speaker 1: They would call my relatives and threaten them. And these
Speaker 1: are relatives that did not know what had happened. And
Speaker 1: so I had relatives thinking that I was a deadbeat
Speaker 1: or just not paying my bills. And trying to evade authorities.
Speaker 1: Victims of identity theft, like Louise and Ronnie have to
Speaker 1: live on just cash for many years because their credit
Speaker 1: scores takes such a big hit, which is a tremendous
Speaker 1: inconvenience on its own, But for some victims, identity fraud
Speaker 1: can have scary social and medical implications too. Eva told
Speaker 1: me about one woman who had her wallet stolen. The
Speaker 1: thief who was addicted to metha and fetaments and pregnant,
Speaker 1: presented the woman's I D to the hospital when she
Speaker 1: gave birth and abandoned the baby. The identity theft victim
Speaker 1: had to undergo a medical exam to prove she didn't
Speaker 1: give birth. Her own children were yanked at of school,
Speaker 1: interviewed by Child Protective Services, and she still gets contacted
Speaker 1: regularly about back payment of child support and other issues.
Speaker 1: Every time the child who was a and then by
Speaker 1: a real mother moves to a new foster home, she'll
Speaker 1: be dealing with this for the rest of her life.
Speaker 1: In Ronnie's case, his brother started getting medical care using
Speaker 1: Ronnie's name. I was severely deftly alerted to Kennicillen he
Speaker 1: had not, so it was his constant fear that if
Speaker 1: something has happened to me and I needed medical treatment
Speaker 1: and all of my records are all mixed up, would
Speaker 1: I be given tennessellen? Would I be suddenly, you know,
Speaker 1: given treatment that I didn't move. Eventually, collection agencies came
Speaker 1: after Ronnie, demanding seventy five thousand dollars in overdue bills.
Speaker 1: It was horrifying to be faced with that. I mean
Speaker 1: nothing that I was going to be able to do
Speaker 1: at that point to get above and beyond what was
Speaker 1: happening to me. How did you respond to them? I mean,
Speaker 1: they're fine time begging, this isn't e And the response was,
Speaker 1: you know a lot in a lot of cases, the
Speaker 1: majority of the security is quick, quick, quick, wasting our time. Um.
Speaker 1: The way that the alternetys and the creditors talked to
Speaker 1: me on the phone was so abusive that not only
Speaker 1: was I facing what I was going through and had
Speaker 1: been for so many decades, I felt they're coming after me.
Speaker 1: My way, ages are going to be garnished, the apartment
Speaker 1: that I've co signed, it is going to affect that
Speaker 1: person's credit. It was it was torture. How many phone
Speaker 1: calls do you suppose you made probably and I am
Speaker 1: unfortunately not exaggerating, probably ten thousand. You know, Harriet, that's
Speaker 1: a lot of my life. Yeah, yeah, that's a lot
Speaker 1: of my life. I spent making phone calls for something
Speaker 1: I didn't do. I'm sorry, I'm on. You know, the
Speaker 1: pain is still there, you know, in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: She don't get it back. You don't get your turn back,
Speaker 1: not only of your commentcial abilities of your try As
Speaker 1: we've been hearing, having your identity stolen can destroy your life.
Speaker 1: And when it comes to the Equifax hack, we simply
Speaker 1: don't know how much damage has been done. Sometimes after
Speaker 1: a cyber attack, the data appears on the dark web,
Speaker 1: the online black market if the attacker is trying to
Speaker 1: make a quick buck, but those stolen identities have not
Speaker 1: yet been found. That's making some experts worried that the
Speaker 1: thieves have more complex ambitions that have yet to play out.
Speaker 1: That also means this is the perfect time to make
Speaker 1: sure you do what you can right now to protect yourself.
Speaker 1: That the first thing you need to do is pull
Speaker 1: your credit reports. That's eva our identity theft expert again.
Speaker 1: Even if you aren't a victim of this, each if
Speaker 1: you haven't pulled your credit report in a while or ever.
Speaker 1: This is one of the first steps that you can
Speaker 1: do to take control. Everyone is entitled to a free
Speaker 1: credit report every twelve months from each of the three
Speaker 1: major bureaus. You can request it from annual credit report
Speaker 1: dot com. Once you do that, you need to review
Speaker 1: it carefully. It's not complicated, it's just a little bit tedious,
Speaker 1: and make sure that there's nothing on there that's unfamiliar
Speaker 1: or that you don't recognize. And then if there is
Speaker 1: fraudulent activity, you need to go directly to the source.
Speaker 1: You need to report that to the issuer of the
Speaker 1: credit and then to the credit reporting agency, whichever one
Speaker 1: is on your whichever credit report it's on. Maybe it's one,
Speaker 1: maybe it's two, maybe it's all three, so there is
Speaker 1: some leg work involved there. Once it's accurate, you can
Speaker 1: put a freeze on your credit This means no one
Speaker 1: can open new accounts unless you unfreeze it. You can
Speaker 1: also set a fraud alert, which requires the creditor to
Speaker 1: verify your identity before issuing a credit card or opening
Speaker 1: an account. This won't stop the thief like a credit
Speaker 1: freeze would do, but it does require the lender to
Speaker 1: take additional steps. Another step you can take is to
Speaker 1: enroll in a free, year long credit monitoring service that
Speaker 1: Equifax is offering as a way of apologizing to consumers.
Speaker 1: You have until November twenty one to enroll, or you
Speaker 1: could also pay for other credit monitoring services. This is
Speaker 1: something that you will have to do for the rest
Speaker 1: of your life. Good identity hygiene is just a part
Speaker 1: of the world we live in. It's like brushing your teeth,
Speaker 1: and a breach highlights that for us. Grad You've been
Speaker 1: the victim of an identity theft too, haven't you. That's right, Losette. Yes,
Speaker 1: my friend brad Stone up in Seattle. No, some fellow
Speaker 1: with a bit of an online shopping addiction who obtained
Speaker 1: my personal information some however ten years ago. I really
Speaker 1: have no idea how, And I just started to get
Speaker 1: notices that bills would do different accounts that I had
Speaker 1: never opened. Would you do? Do? You know? It's a
Speaker 1: real nightmare, and you know we don't want to scare
Speaker 1: monger here, and you know the chances that your identity
Speaker 1: will be stolen are small, but oh my god, like
Speaker 1: I put fraud alerts on the three credit agencies. Then
Speaker 1: I kept going, I put freezes on them. They give
Speaker 1: you pin numbers. You gotta save the pins, and then
Speaker 1: when you want to take out credit it's an ordeal.
Speaker 1: But I will say this. At one point I got
Speaker 1: frustrated and I called the guy in Seattle because I
Speaker 1: had I I somehow had all of his information. Oh,
Speaker 1: I had it because all the stuff that he was
Speaker 1: ordering online was being delivered to his to a home.
Speaker 1: So I called up and I said, you know, and
Speaker 1: I just I said, uh, I think somebody's been impersonating
Speaker 1: me here and I would really appreciate it if you
Speaker 1: would stop, and they might stop. Well, uh they did.
Speaker 1: It did stop when I put freezes on the accounts,
Speaker 1: because that nobody can open up an account in your name.
Speaker 1: I also had to wrangle with my credit card company
Speaker 1: and all these different e commerce companies to go and
Speaker 1: reverse the charges. It was. It's a nightmare. Today Ronnie
Speaker 1: is forty six. It's been almost thirty years since he
Speaker 1: first realized that his brother stoles birth certificate and Social
Speaker 1: Security card from him. His brother is serving seven years
Speaker 1: in prison, the maximum sentence for stealing his identity, and
Speaker 1: Ronnie today has a lease and a phone in his
Speaker 1: own name for the first time. I'm no longer a victim.
Speaker 1: I'm a survivor. Meanwhile, for Louise, it's been a decade
Speaker 1: since that day she sat in the courthouse and watched
Speaker 1: her imposter gets sentenced in her name. After years of
Speaker 1: endless calls with collection agencies, she thinks she's finally cleaned
Speaker 1: up the mess. But even for her, the psychological scars
Speaker 1: from the criminal case and hearing herself be sentenced are
Speaker 1: still there. Yeah. I mean, she still carries around the
Speaker 1: paperwork that proves her innocence, signed by a judge ten
Speaker 1: years ago, everywhere she goes. She also checks her credit
Speaker 1: report every single month. I asked her if she has
Speaker 1: any last parting tips for our listeners, to be really
Speaker 1: honest with that that whole experience. Obviously, I do what's
Speaker 1: logical and practical. Um, but I also learned that we
Speaker 1: don't have control over our information a lot. This happened
Speaker 1: so often, and you just have to be prepared for it.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're going to be engaging in the Internet,
Speaker 1: and you know, online shopping or online banking, there's really
Speaker 1: no way you can fully protect against everything. So um,
Speaker 1: my best advice is just to understand what information is
Speaker 1: out there and be prepared if something happens. And that's
Speaker 1: it for this week's episode of Decryptive. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: If you've been affected by the Equifax breach and have
Speaker 1: a story to share, get in touch at decrypted at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot net or I'm on Twitter at Lizette, Underscore
Speaker 1: Chapman and I'm at brad Stone. If you haven't already,
Speaker 1: subscribe to our show wherever you get your podcasts, and
Speaker 1: while you're there, please leave us a rating and review.
Speaker 1: This goes a long way to get this show in
Speaker 1: front of more listeners. This episode was produced by Pio Gakari,
Speaker 1: hockey Ito, Liz Smith, and Magnus Henriksson of Very special
Speaker 1: thanks to our reporter Natalie Wong who helped with today's show.
Speaker 1: We'll see you next week.