Top 10 Cases of Corporate Identity Theft

(Photo credit: thewamphyri)Corporate identity theft cases have been in the news for quite some time now. Ever since the high pace advancement of technology has taken its toll, identity thefts have started to become more of a norm with every passing year. People looking for debt relief advice have moved on to stealing identities to get over with their credit card debt relief as soon as they can without the guilt of taking someone’s hard earnings that they’ve probably wasted years in gathering.

There are many cases available in recent history that depicts corporate identity thefts. Some of which are given below:

Identical Names

Executive Outcome Inc. and Executive Outcomes Inc. both possessed the same names. Although countries apart, the identical names led to a loss of twenty three million dollars to the South African Executive Outcomes Inc. which was collected by Executive Outcome Inc. situated in Michigan. The South African company was supposed to collect the mount from the government of Sierra Leone for military equipment and training etc.

The Michigan-based company took its chance and hired a debt collection agency with fabricating documents and registered a new business in England in the name of the same South African company that was originally designated to collect the debt. When a British debt collector came into the scene and submitted paperwork to the Sierra Leone government, he was amazed to find out that the payments had already been issued with present paperwork, leaving the company and collector distressed.

Experienced Hackers

There was a corporate identity theft case reported in 2009 that grabbed much of the media attention over the U.S. Department of Justice’s moves. The case involved a man from Miami named Albert Gonzalez along with his two conspirators were charged with stealing over one hundred and thirty numerous debit and credit card numbers due to corporate info breach from five companies i.e.

• Heartland Payment Systems
• Hannaford Brothers computer systems
• JC Penny
• Target
• Seven Citibank ATMs

Lifelock

Todd Davis, a confident CEO of his company called Lifelock was so confident about the identity theft protection provided by his company that he openly shared his real social security number with the world via advertising. This included billboards, Internet marketing and even side paintings on buses and trucks.

Leaving aside identity protection, his own personal account was scraped up of five hundred dollars for a cash advance loan with eighty seven following the lead using pseudonyms like Joe Blow and J.T Hutt etc.

Stealing from the Stars

A busboy named Abraham Abdallah was quite in the social scene for a while when he got hold of financial statements belonging to Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg’s credit card. He was caught on the scene with making a ten million dollar transfer hiding behind a software giant.

Frank Abagnale

Posing as a doctor, an airline pilot and history professor etc., Abagnale fooled the authorities for many years racking up to four million dollars of wrong checks. After being caught and convicted, he now owns a business that helps fight against mischief like his.

ID Fraud from China

In the mid 2004s, A Japanese electronics giant, the NEC, received reports of its pirated products being sold in major parts of China. The piracy started from keyboards and CD/DVDs and elevated up to home entertainment centers and MP3 players with over fifty factories operating within the whole country dedicated to producing NEC logoed goods on their own.

At Employee’s Hands

A company selling one of its departments handed over the list of its employees and their personal information to the purchaser. After a few months, about sixty of those employees were overcharged with one thing or another. It turned out that the purchasing company’s employees had conducted id thefts on the new ones.

Out of the Country

A person was out of the country for almost four years and upon his return to the U.S., he found out that a business has been created with his savings and he’s also been granted loans, and the power of attorney has also been transferred to a new person. It was the same person who rented his house prior to leaving the States.

Stealing Musician

The director of a business involving music production has committed fraudulent transactions conjuring more than 5 million dollars. This has affected high scale financial institutions like the Sun Trust Bank and the American Express.

Singer at Large

An ex-singer looking for credit card debt relief and serving prison time stole the identities and numbers of 200 companies and 150 individuals, making transactions worth more than 1 million dollars.

Becoming a criminal and stealing other people’s hard-earned money wouldn't come in question if only a person tries to seek some debt relief advice.

The above article is written and edited by Angelina J who is an expert adviser for debt related issues.