by Jason Morris

Marketwatch, one of the leading internet portals for financial information is reporting that less than one third of US Banks will be ready to meet the new “Red Flag” regulations in November.

With the November 1, 2008 compliance deadline looming, new research from TowerGroup finds that many US banks have mistakenly considered compliance with the “Red Flags Rules,” as they are known, merely an administrative exercise — and as a result, most will need to take rapid action to meet the more stringent regulatory demands.

Last month Attorney Pamela Devata wrote a guest article for employeescreen University to help prepare employers for this looming deadline.  The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 (FACTA) have specific directives for users of consumer information that are aimed at uncovering and preventing incidents of identity theft. These new regulations go into effect on November 1, 2008 and require the creation of a number of new policies and procedures for specified entities. Some of the regulations apply to all users of consumer reports, where others are specific to financial institutions and creditors.

According to Pam:

FACTA or the FACT Act as it is sometimes referred to went into effect in December 2003 and amended the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) in a number of ways. As it relates to identity theft prevention, FACTA instituted a procedure to help users of consumer reports combat identity theft by creating a notion of “red flags” when identity theft was suspected. In FACTA, a “Red Flag” is defined as a pattern, practice, or specific activity that indicates the possible existence of identity theft. A “user” of a consumer report includes entities such as employers who obtain consumer reports for the purpose of making employment (hiring, promotion, firing, etc.) decisions, as well as financial institutions, and granters of credit who use the information contained in consumer reports to issue credit cards, loans or mortgages, and other such activities.

The moral of this story?  We are ready, are you?

by Jason Morris

Something always bothered me about these commercials, I knew I smelled something fishy! Company CEO, Todd Davis dared consumers to steal his identity. Mr. Davis took this dare a step further, he put his Social Security Number out there for the public to see. It now appears Mr. Davis and his company are being sued in three states because his “lifelock” doesn’t work! To take it a step further, it has been found that Mr. Davis’ identity has been compromised so many times he has over 20 drivers licenses in various states.

I know what you are saying; Why is a background screening company writing about a story like this? Its simple, all the privacy legislation and identity theft news was kicked off a few years ago because of a data breach in our industry. There are now several areas of the FACT Act that require us to help consumers when they are victims of these crimes. Identity theft is a serious matter, consumers are out billions do dollars every year and services like this are not making consumers lives any easier!

The best thing you can do to ensure you are not a victim is check your credit report at least once if not twice yearly. The FTC has some great resources to further protect yourself. If you feel you are a victim, contact your attorney immediately.

ID-protection ads come back to bite pitchman