California Woman Uses RootsWeb to Commit Identity Theft

Federal prosecutors this week charged a Southern California woman with aggravated identity theft and other crimes for allegedly using a popular genealogy research website to locate people who had recently died, and then taking over their credit cards.

Tracy June Kirkland, 42, allegedly used Rootsweb.com to find the names, Social Security numbers and birth dates of people who, shall we say, had no further need for their consumer credit lines. She then "would randomly call various credit card companies to determine if the deceased individual had an … account," according to the 15-count indictment filed in federal court in Los Angeles Tuesday.

She'd then persuade the issuer to change the mailing address for the dead victim to one of her many rented mail drops in Orange and Riverside counties, and in some cases she'd add her own name as an authorized user of the card, prosecutors say.

You can read the entire story in the Wired web site at http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/feds-charge-cal.html. The indictment is available at http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/files/tracy_june_kirkland.pdf.

My thanks to John Ralls for letting me know about this story.

Comments

[Jean-Yves]

I have mentioned this story on GeneaSofts last Thursday.

[Betty]

I often think about that possibility when I look at the SSDI at www.familysearch.org

WHY do they need to post the Soc. Sec. numbers there?

[Larry Hamilton]

The idea behind the SSDI is to prevent fraud. The banks that got scammed are too slow to update this information in their system. This kind of thing is not supposed to be able to happen.

Rootsweb is 3 or more months behind the current SSDI file. More current versions of the SSDI are available for a fee.

[Dae Powell]

One of the oldest scams of the 20th century. In fact, here in Dallas we made a movie about it, based on the fact that death records are seldom cross-referenced with birth records. The premise was that a perpetrator would look at obits or gravestones of individuals about the same age as the perp. Then a birth certificate copy would be requested. With THAT ID, all sorts of documentation could be obtained. And the rest is ... well ... fraud.

Happy Dae.
http://www.ShoeStringGenealogy.com

[Lindsey]

Well, now all the people who complain about online family trees having too much information on the living can start complaining about family trees with too much information on the dead.

Instead of attacking the SSDI, the Riverside County DA needs to send this woman away for 25 years and make an example of her.

When she's relaased from prison at age 65, she'll fit the demographics of this website's primary viewing audience, so maybe she can take up genealogy for the sake of genealogy. I suspect she'd make a great genealogist.

[Leonard McCown]

When my mother-in-law died in 1991, I made a point of mailing info to all her credit cards that she was deceased and to close the account. A few years later some of them mailed credit card applications to her old address in her name! Our daughter was living in the house so of course received them. I called and gave them a "talking" to. The credit card companies are not careful.

[Cari Thomas]

This is a reason why the family of newly deceased persons should cancel his/her credit cards - or at least having the credit card accounts "flagged" (and be sure to document that action in the family's records) - as soon as possible!

[Joy]

"The SSA Death Master File is used by leading government, financial, investigative, credit reporting organization, medical research and other industries to verify identity as well as to prevent fraud and comply with the USA Patriot Act" ((http://www.ntis.gov/products/ssa-dmf.aspx).

The Social Security Administrations' Death Master File is sold by the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Technical Information Service.

The full file is available quarterly, and monthly and weekly updates can also be purchased (http://www.ntis.gov/products/ssa-weekly.aspx and http://www.ntis.gov/pdf/ssdmf-raw%20data%20form.pdf).

[Kathy]

Maybe the US should do what Canada does. Death records are not accessible for 20 years, birth records after 100 years and marriages after 75 years. Also you will never find a persons Social Insurance Number (as we call it) on any of the information. Makes the fraud issue through gen. records almost non existent.

[Diana]

considering the problems I face when I want to change my own address, and my huband's since the government's privacy act was passed, I find this incredible. the companies involved who gave her information and changed records based on her telephone calls, should also be charged with crimes. they are obviously not following outlined procedures on privacy and I for one don't feel bad about the money that they loose. poor employees at best.

[Penny in Texas]

Oh, good grief. It's not the SSDI being public that's the problem. The SSDI is published so that financial institutions can prevent fraud, not be an unwitting and ready accomplice to it. The problem stems from the laxity of some (not all, but some) banks and most credit card companies. These greedy folks at such places as Citicorp, really hate closing an account, even if the account-holder is quite dead.

Back in 1993, I was the exutrix of my mother's will. I called customer service for each of her accounts, informing them she had died and to please flag the account as not to be used, pending letters from me with more official information. I then sent each of them a copy of her latest statement and a copy of her death certificate enclosed with a letter requesting the account be closed immediately.

Guess what happened? In most cases, they sent my mother a new credit card on the account and in every case they sent new "checks" to be used on it.

It took a letter from our attorney, stating her estate would not be held responsible for charges past the date of her death, to get them closed.

Criminals will find a way to use credit cards if the card company doesn't take advantage of the data readily available to them to stop it. And not publishing the SSDI where the public can find it won't stop criminally minded people from finding a way to do this.

Next thing you know people will howl that newspapers ought not to publish obituaries, all in the name of preventing identity theft of the dead. Funeral homes will have NDAs and bury people at midnight and the mourners will have to wear masks to remain incognito ... the rediculous scenarios one could come up with following this train of thought are endless and pretty amusing.

Just my thoughts,
Penny

[JP]

My mother has been deceased for over a year and IRS sent a blank 1040 form for her to fill out and send in so she is eligible for the Bush tax refund probably $600. I've wondered how many people are going to jump on this and fill out a 1040 and send it in just so they can collect this refund.
Joyce

[Colleen]

We recently received a credit card offer for our son who was killed in an automobile accident 20 years ago when he was 31. I believe that the SSDI does not list people who were not receiving SS at the time of their deaths.
Colleen

[kwriter]

A few years ago my Mother-in-law passed away. On the evening before the funeral her house was robbed and all the paper work was taken in her house. For that reason I immediately called the credit card companies she had. I did have her wallet and cards. Some of the companies seemed reluctant to close the acct out anyway. Since then we still occasionally get mail for her at our address offering her new credit cards from the same places she had the old ones from. I don't think the left hand knows what the right hand is doing in many instances.

[Kathy Wilson]

In regards to what Colleen had to say....My daughter died in 1994 just before her 26th. birthday. Her name appears in the SSDI.

[Dick Eastman]

In the early days, the Social Security Administration only recorded the deaths of those who had been receiving benefits. That changed in the late 1980s/early 1990s when the Administration started listing ALL American deaths, regardless of age or whether or not they had been receiving benefits. My 15-year-old son died in 1994 and is listed in the SSDI.

- Dick Eastman

[Kathy G]

Actually if family of the deceased making the funeral arrangements would think to close the credit cards immediately that might help. Problem with our Judicial System is that punishments are not severe enough. We worry about " appropriate " punishment. Also credit card companies should never state whether a person has an account or not to a total stranger who maybe cannot answer security questions. So how is our Government protecting us? What's wrong with the credit companies poor polices or employees who fail to comply with policies? Why are credit companies sending applications to anyone anymore via any means of communication? Does the SSDI really need to be viewable online to the world?

[Betty]

With regard to Penny's message: "Next thing you know people will howl that newspapers ought not to publish obituaries, all in the name of preventing identity theft of the dead."

One of my jobs on a newspaper was obituaries, and I always pushed for maiden names for the sake of future genealogists. One man whose father had died at first resisted giving his grandmother's maiden name for fear of identity theft. However, his wife made him change his mind and release it. Perhaps she was wondering if her own identity would be preserved for her descendants!

[Billy G]

Actually, the SSDI contains names of those people that SSA has been notified as being dead. A friend of mine died 10 years ago at age 40 and she is not there. When my grandmother died, the funeral home took care of all paperwork, including notifying SSA.

[john]

My sister was named exutrix in my parents will.My Mother died 10
years ago and my father just passed away.In the will all 4 children
got the same share of the estate my sister was the ecutrix.My father
left a good some of money and a house to us.My sister said she wanted to buy us out of the house.The house had been hit by termites
and need to be repaired.At the time of death it was apprariased at 310,000 dollars. My father left us 75,000. She had the dammage fixed
without a contract she had no idea what the contractor got per hr and never produced a receit for the materials to fix the problem.Not
only did she fix the problem she kept going and going no knowing
how much she was paying the contractor he gave his hours to her and
she just paid him and paid him.All she kept saying was to us is everything is ok well it`s not.She went throu the whole house painting cielings (nothing to do with the termites mind you) and
painting walls hallways new floors upstairs there was nothing wrong with the old one`s and lighting on and on it went.She went through all the money building her dream house with our money.She didnt fix the leaking roof which was damaged and I gave her the insurance money to fix.Now the new appraisal was 359,000 we lost 40 thousand
on her investment but we argreed to it and wanted her to keep it in the family and we would get our 90,000 each so we went to sign the papers at the laywers office and saw a price change from 359,000 to 340,000 so we all had questions of where did the 20,000 dollars go
she said there was never 20,000 dollars that was an imaginary number.Well not for my youngest sister she wanted to know where it went,so My Sister (the exutrix) said she took her 5% allowed to her
by law.Well we bitched and moaned but gave in and took 85,000 instead of 90,000 She resented us for questioning her and called us all greedy people thats right us.For that she said she didn`t want the house and if we can do a better job the she quit.So here we are with this big house we agreed to give her plus 20,000.She left us with no money to pay the contractor the remaing money the roof that was never fixed and 2 out of the 3 unemployed.Are we responsable for her overspending? It was going to be her house and she buit it that way everything she wanted with our money.I need some help on this....

[Myra]

Someone said, people complain about having to much on the living. I follow etiquette and work the old fashion way. I tract family's and ask for information an get permission to add them to my tree. I have not one living person on my tree doesn't know that they are there.
If someone doesn't want me to add their dead family member.. I don't add. It's not worth making people up happy. It is their family..
People take a lot for granted. For their own satisfaction.