Identity Fraud Victims May Soon Be Able To Sue For Time Spent Getting Their Identity Back
from the recognizing-the-pain dept
One of the biggest problems with scammers taking your ID is that the victims are the ones who have to spend all the time and money cleaning up their credit record and dealing with the fallout of the fraud with little recourse. A new bill that's going through the Senate aims to at least allow identity fraud victims to sue the scammers for the time and effort it takes to repair their lives. Of course, that depends on them figuring out who the scammer was, which isn't always easy. This certainly seems reasonable given the burden placed on the victims of such scams, but it won't lessen the pain in dealing with credit agencies who all to often don't seem particularly willing to help in the aftermath of identity fraud.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: identity fraud, identity theft
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First rule of lawsuits
Here, these senators want the "identity thieves" to make their victims whole. Well, if wishes were horses and so on...
But this bill doesn't provide incentives for banks to improve security. It doesn't provided incentives for credit reporting agencies to get their facts straight. And so on...
In short, it perpetuates a system where powerful institutions can go around spreading damaging lies about people—and then point to some scummy scammer and say, “It's all his fault!” But, it just isn't all the fault of those 'cybercriminals'. Part of the responsibility needs to rest with those companies who are in a position to implement better security—but instead externalize their costs onto ordinary people who can't really do anything about it.
Good one, senators! Tell us another joke, please.
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Blood from a stone
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Re: Blood from a stone
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Adding to it?
This is a good idea, and will help a few people. The main problem for the majortiy is that either they won't get a penny from them or the person won't be caught for them to exercise this right.
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Class Actions
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Major Breech
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Re: Major Breech
Or, as in my case, allowed to bring some sort of charges against a debt collector who decided I was a person in a town about 150 miles from where I live and, somehow, managed to add all her bad debt to my credit report. I emphasize "her" because I was able to learn who she was, that we have a similar name but with a different spelling and that I'm old enough to be her grandfather. She did not steal my identity but simply failed to pay her bills.
It took a lot of time, effort and money to clear this from my credit history. The big three credit agencies were no help at all and, in fact, seemed bent on making the situation as difficult for me as possible.
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Why not hold the credit reports liable?
Credit reporting companies charge you to see YOUR information so I propose that they should be liable if that information is wrong. My guess is that they would be more careful, and work harder to fix mistakes. As it is, they can spread false information about you with impunity; even after they reasonably know it to be false.
Get legislation that fixes that, so repairing the damage of identity theft won't require thousands of hours.
Roo
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Actually...
Although, I'd be all for public stonings/lynchings of the a-holes who do this... along with those who send spam, of course.
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If a company gets their database hacked and looses your info - you get ripped off because of that - you should be able to sue them too. Perhaps corporations and agencies would take better care of the information or simply decide they don't want the risk and keep information out of their database.
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Great Idea
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Say your wallet was stolen. It has your ID, credit cards, maybe even your Social Security card (some people do carry it). You could sue the thief that used your credit info and stole your identity. But as a course of Proximate Cause, you could try to sue the Bank that opened the new account, the credit card company that issued the new card, and so on. Get as many entities involved that had your identity stolen.
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Credit
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What a wast of the Senates time.
This was my problem with Google. I wanted to follow up on trying to find out who used my credit card to charge fee's associated with Google advertising, but they won't tell me a thing.
So how would this law help me?
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Another solution
Let the Insurance company sue whomever they want.
They have the time, they have the money. They have the trained attack lawyers.
Just a thought...
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Crap
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knowingly allowing an unauthorized party activate card
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newest jordan shoes
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