ATU695 – Identity Theft Resource Center with Mona Terry

Hi, this is Mona Terry and I’m the Chief Victims officer of the Identity Theft Resource Center, and this is your Assistive Technology Update.

Hello and welcome to your Assistive Technology Update, a weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist individuals with disabilities and special needs. I’m your host, Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. Welcome to episode 695 of Assistive Technology Update. It is scheduled to be released on September 20th, 2024. On today’s show, we are super excited to welcome Mona Terry, the Chief Victims Officer from the Identity Theft Resource Center, and she’s here to generally just scare us about identity theft. But actually to tell us about the great things they do there at the Identity Theft Resource Center in order to help individuals who are victims of identity theft and also do a little bit of education outreach and other things, as well as to talk about an opportunity they have to learn a little bit more about how identity theft affects populations and individuals with disabilities.

As always, listeners, we thank you so much for listening. Now let’s go ahead and get on with the show.

Folks, we cannot thank you enough for giving us a listen here at Assistive Technology Update. Without you, we would not have been around for… Oh, coming up on getting pretty darn close that 700 episode mark. But did you know this is not the only podcast that we have? You can also check out our sister show, Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions. This show comes out once a month and it features panelists, Belva Smith, Brian Norton, and myself as we try to answer the questions that are plaguing your mind about assistive technology. We gather up all the questions we get during the month from emails, phone calls, and many other means, and then we do our best to answer them. But I got to tell you folks, believe it or not, we do not know everything.

So we rely on our listeners a lot to reach out to us and give us some of those answers or maybe just talk about their personal experiences and things that have happened to them. So if you like Assistive Technology Update, you may very well love Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions. Again, that’s Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions where you can get your questions about assistive technology answered. Or if you happen to have the answers to some of the questions asked on that show, please, please, please do reach out and let us know so that we can help the community with the answers that they so desperately seek. Much like Assistive Technology Update, you can find Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions wherever you prefer to get your podcast. And as always listeners, thank you for listening.

Listeners, we are super excited to partner with our employment program here at Easterseals Crossroads to offer assistive technology and employment full-day training coming up on Thursday, October 3rd from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM, Eastern Time.

This marks our final full-day training of the year here for us here at INDATA. And as I said, we’re very excited to partner with our employment program here at Easterseals Crossroads in honor of National Disability Employment Awareness Month. During this training, we are super excited to welcome folks from [inaudible 00:03:21] to present on inclusive strategies for welcoming applicants and including employees with disabilities. I’ll also present on assistive technology, job placement, job accommodation and all that fun stuff. And then we will welcome the folks from our employment program here at Easterseals Crossroads for a whole seminar on the job search, as well as an employer panel featuring representatives and some employers here in Indiana and how they work to employ individuals with disabilities. So we’re very, very excited for this training and as I said, it will happen on October 3rd to kick off National Disability Employment Awareness Month.

If you are interested in attending any of our trainings, but especially this one coming up on October 3rd, you can go over to eastersealstech.com. Check out our full-day trainings and sign up right there. It is free to attend, but you do have to register, especially if you need any of those continuing education units or CEUs. This training is available both online and in person, so if you’re not able to make it here to Indianapolis, you can always join us online. Or if you happen to be in the neighborhood, please do stop by.

We always love having folks in person now that that is again a possibility. So if you’re interested in learning more about assistive technology and employment, please do join us for our full-day training on Thursday, October 3rd from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM Eastern here at Easterseals Crossroads and online. You can check that out at eastersealstech.com. I will also put a link down in the show notes where you can go and secure your tickets. Don’t forget it is free to attend, but you do have to register in order to be able to attend that day, both in person and online. We look forward to seeing you there.

Listeners today we are super excited to welcome Mona Terry. She’s the Chief Victims Officer for the Identity Theft Resource Center, and she’s here to tell us about identity theft and hopefully help us to understand how to avoid or at least mitigate the fallout from it. Mona, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, I am really excited to get into this topic that I think affects probably far, far, far too many of us. But before we do that, could you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Sure. Let’s see. I have been with the Identity Theft Resource Center for almost nine years at this point. And so my role as Chief Victims Officer, which is definitely a great title, it’s a unique one for sure. A conversation starter, is really to oversee all of our direct victims services. So anyone who comes to the Identity Theft Resource Center and is concerned about their identity in any way. So whether it’s I fell for a scam and didn’t realize it was a scam until it was too late, or someone stole my wallet, had my driver’s license in it, or I know that someone’s actively misusing a bank account or has filed taxes in my name.

Anything that has to do with an identity credential within the US, we help that and my department helps with that. And I take a look at all the data that comes in and look at trends and talk to people about what the trends are. And then also do a lot of our education content externally and internally around the different things that are happening, different technology that’s come out and ways to protect your information, that kind of thing.

Excellent. And you kind of already answered my next question about just how do folks accomplish identity theft? And I know that’s probably not the right word. And you brought up a few different ways here, but how do folks go about stealing someone’s identity or what do we need to look for as we put… I don’t know, information out there? What kind of information stolen and then how is it used?

So really any way that they can steal it, they’re going to, right? So we saw electronically, it’s data breaches, right? So that’s not even through the victims themselves, but companies whose information’s been broken into. So data breaches scams is the number one way that people report compromise of their information to the ITRC, stolen and lost documents, especially things that people don’t think about. Maybe you’re going to file taxes and it’s right on paper. And so having that tax documentation, we’ve had people who have had their information stolen maybe on the first day of a work when they go and they bring their driver’s license or their passport and their social security card and maybe they leave it in their car and their car got broken into, we’ve heard that story before.

So those are different ways that it’s compromised. And then really there’s a lot of, if people use the same username and password and that’s been exposed in a data breach, then maybe that person who stole that or sold that information to someone who’s using it can then crack open a bunch of different other accounts, really kind of like I said, you name it. And mail theft. Mail theft is alive and well as well. So we saw that dip for a little bit. And I think because of COVID and all of that, I think we just saw a resurgence in just good old-fashioned theft, dumpster diving and mail theft. So really anyway that anyone can get that information, even if the people who steal it aren’t the ones using it, they’re taking it and selling it and making money that way. And there it goes.

I think the most common types of identity crimes that we see tend to involve financial accounts, so bank accounts and credit card accounts. We’ve seen a lot of new credit card accounts established in people’s names and new bank accounts. I think what’s scary about the bank accounts is the scammers are using that for a drop account. Either they’re trying to scam people out of their money and then drop it into account and their name and then move it out, or they’re just trying to set up as many bank accounts as they can in people’s names and then use that just as a holding place for funds, stolen funds, and then transferring them right out.

So those are the most common ones that we see. The most common scams that we’re seeing right now are job scams. So people are… I think they’re being approached for a job opportunity or they’re researching job opportunities. That’s where the AI piece comes into play, where the job sites are being spoofed and people are being spoofed to… Like LinkedIn profiles and things like that. And so people are being asked to provide driver’s licenses, social security cards, things like that to apply for a job, which usually you don’t give until after you’ve been hired. So they’re asking for that information. Google Voice is a big scam that we heard about. So that’s for people who are selling items usually on Facebook marketplace, but really anywhere where the scammer tries to kind of flip the script and say, Hey, how do I know that you are legitimate?

I don’t know that you’re a legitimate person. I’m going to send you a code which is part of that multifactor authentication. And then I need you to read out that code to me so I know that you’re legitimate. And what it is you need to have a verified US based phone number to set up a Google Voice account. And so it’s typically foreign folks that are trying to tie your phone number, your typically cell phone to a Google Voice account so that they can get a US based phone number and then use that phone number to scam other people. So those are kind of the most common things that we’re seeing right now in the contact center.

All right. Well, I was trying not to make this a scary show, but unfortunately it’s already a little bit scary. But let’s talk about just for a moment, some of the good things. Just for a little bit of background, can you tell us about the ITRC or the Identity Theft Resource Center?

Yeah, so the ITRC has been around since 1999, so 25 years. And we started really just focusing on identity misuse, so people whose accounts have been taken over. And then we realized as this space grew and cyber crimes became a thing, we really just of kind of grew our scope and how we help folks. And so our services are free and we offer this service. We have a 1-800 number, toll-free number. People can text us, call us, email us with their concerns, whether it’s just, Hey, I heard you and I want to know how to protect my information to, Hey, I have a family member who’s dealing with something.

And they can reach out to us Monday through Friday, 6:00 AM to 5:00 PM Pacific, and if we don’t get back to you right away, we’ll get back to you with usually within one business day. And will you work with folks for as long as needed? We really are here to not only help direct victims, but also we talk to media and government agencies and business and all the stakeholders in the space about the victim impact, right? Who are the people behind these numbers and these dollars, and what is the impact to those people and their network? And that’s really kind of who we are and our voice in this space.

Nice. And I guess just to dig into that, what are some of the impacts of having your identity stolen?

Well, I think it’s long-reaching, right? So the immediate impact is… Well, obviously there’s inconvenience. They’re getting money, right? So whether it’s they stole your information, they’re setting up accounts in your name, the primary impact I think for a lot of people is financial. The other part I think is that people… This is really not meant to scare people, like you said, I’m not trying to scare people. But it is a scary topic. I think that the other thing is that people just don’t know what’s going to happen, right?

For me at least, I know that people’s identity credentials are how they represent themselves in this space, right? You have a social security number and you use that to verify who you are. You have a bank account number that’s yours, and then you have your credit that’s assigned to you. So all of those things are how you represent yourself in this world with these numbers. And so when that’s stolen, it feels very personal. And then one’s being misused and someone’s out there and creating havoc with your identity, right? You’re like, that’s not me, that’s not me doing this, but someone else is doing this in my name. And that can be really overwhelming. And so I think that the impact is not only financial, but it’s very much emotional as well.

Oh, yeah, for sure. You don’t really think about all those different kinds of ways. And I promise listeners, we’re not trying to scare everybody today, but I mean, it is a very important topic and a very important thing. And I didn’t even realize, you talked about even the mail part was coming back and I just sit there and think, and I’m like with the occasional bill and junk mail, there’s not much in there. But there is always those credit card applications. There is always those other things, and there’s got to be something in there that’s got that information. And if folks know what they’re looking for, I’m sure it’s not that hard to find.

Right.

Now, I also have to ask, maybe what are some things to really look out for? You talked about scams, you talked about some of the other ways that folks get our information. What’s something to maybe look out for a little bit kind of as we navigate the digital world and all the different things that are going on?

I think there’s a lot of talk right now about AI, right? And all of that thing. I think the biggest thing to look out for… I think, I guess the biggest takeaway, if nothing else, if anyone has anything to take away from this conversation, is that always go back to the source of truth, right? So if you get a text message from your bank, call them independently with a number that is good for them. If you get an email from a recruiter, right? Call the company. So there are so many spoofs out there happening right now that I think the biggest thing to look out for is just to go back to the source of truth. If you don’t have an account with a company and they’re saying you owe them money, right? Go back to that company specifically. Do you actually have an account with you in my name?

Right, I think always going back to that source of truth I think is the safest way, I think, to navigate around all the things that are happening and scams that are happening and people trying to get information. And I think the sense of urgency piece is the other thing that we see a lot with identity thieves and just scammers in general is everything has to happen right this second. And I can say that it’s very rarely is it where you need to make a decision on the spot where you can’t take a couple… Even if it’s just a couple hours, right? To take a step back, think about it rationally, kind of rationalize through that.

A lot of times the thieves and scammers are out there really preying on people’s emotions and keeping them in that heightened state where you’re not necessarily thinking through it because you’re feeling so much of the sense of panic or sense of urgency. And so there’s another thing to look out for is anyone that tells you you have to do something right now and doesn’t give you a chance to kind of think through the best option, that’s always a red flag too, to watch out for.

Yeah, so it definitely gets a little bit scary. I guess going along that, so let’s say that I receive a letter or some other correspondent stating that my information has been leaked in a data breach. We’ve probably all gotten these and unfortunately it’s probably happened to most of us. What should we do if we learn that maybe our information has been leaked? It is out there.

Yeah, I think it really just depends on the information that’s been leaked. So most times if it happens with an account holder with a financial institution, they’ll reissue, right? Your account… They’ll give you a new account number, a new card. So that’s the nice thing is I feel like on the positive side, I think there’s a lot of fraud detection out there, which is great. So a lot of times you’ll get notified before you even realize something has happened and they’ve already taken care of it. But the biggest thing is really, I think, is doing that active monitoring. So checking your credit report, you can do that for free at annualcreditreport.com with the three major consumer reporting agencies. Freezing your credit we always say is the best thing to do. If you don’t need ready access to your credit, freezing it so that no one can open new accounts in your name.

And then if you do need for some reason access to that credit, you can temporarily thaw it. That’s really secure. And then most, if you’re looking, especially with government agencies, most companies and agencies have a way for you to sign up for an online account, and as long as you’re using a unique passphrase for each of those accounts, doing multifactor authentication, right? Where you use either an authenticator app, you can use pass keys, if nothing else, you can get a text message to your phone with a code, a temporary code, enabling that multifactor authentication so that you’re seeing if changes are made monitoring and screening your online accounts.

Again, you can do it with Social Security administration, IRS, I know all your financial institutions. Just really taking a look at that. I mean, you really have to think just actively be involved, right? With monitoring those things. If you get another one explanation of benefits that we see with medical identity theft, you get kind of… Most insurance companies will send an explanation of benefits once a month that says, here’s what you’ve claimed this month so far, or maybe this year so far, just making sure that there’s nothing on there that looks wonky. That all those benefits that they say you’ve claimed are ones that you’ve claimed yourself and not someone that’s doing that in your name.

It sounds like a lot, but really I think when you get into the practice of just consistently monitoring those things, setting aside a couple of minutes, or you have to have 30 minutes maybe a week if that, to just take a look at all the accounts and make sure everything looks okay. That’s usually the best. And a lot of times, I think just kind of with companies really understanding that this is a concern is you can set up a notifications, right? If your account drops below a certain amount or if a certain dollar charge has been made or someone’s changed an address. There’s a lot of things you can do. Again, you have to go in actively and set those things up, but you can do that so that even if you’re like, I don’t necessarily… I’m not going to remember to do all of these things every single day, right? Then you can have the system set up to do that for you. So it pushes that information to you, which is always a nice feature too.

Yes, yes, it definitely is. And Mona, I know you’re kind of working there to maybe understand the effects of ID theft on different groups of individuals. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Yeah, so we right now are the recipients of two grant funded awards. So they are to really help different populations. So we’re looking at helping survivors of intimate partner violence, of trafficking. We are helping foster youth, we’re helping the blind, low vision community, deaf, hard of hearing community, seniors, really just anyone who is already facing some disadvantages, right? And now they’re being impacted by identity crimes and understanding what do identity crimes look like for those populations and how can we continue to provide assistance. I know with the blind, low vision and deaf, hard of hearing communities, a lot of times we hear about challenges in recovery, sometimes challenges with assistive technology, recognizing scams. So when things come in, right? It’s really hard to see, and a lot of times there’s a visual or auditory component to understanding that something… This doesn’t seem right, and sometimes that can get missed if you have technology doing that for you. So yeah, the grant funding is really just helping us expand our awareness about these types of identity crimes and how they’re happening so we can better help people recover and then protect themselves.

No, that’s great. Yeah. If you don’t understand how it’s happening, then how are you possibly going to educate folks and really get them to where they need to be?

Yeah. And then on a personal note, I have a child who is autistic and she uses an AAC device, and so she’s young enough now that this isn’t a concern for her, but just thinking about her future as well, right? What does that impact going to look like when she’s out there navigating things by herself on her own or a little bit more independently?

Oh, sure. Most definitely. And Mona, you kind of brought up a really good point. Because I have kids as well, and they don’t have bank accounts or… Well, I guess the older ones do, but that’s beside the point. But they do have social security numbers. They do have identifying information and stuff. How do we make sure that their information stays safe?

You can actually freeze children’s credit. So a lot of people don’t know that you can actually go in there and ostensibly, they should not have a credit record, right? Whether they do or not… If they do have one, obviously call us and we can help walk you through how to recover from that. But yeah, you can actually place a credit freeze. The thing that’s a little challenging and scary with that for the adults is that the parent or guardian has to send in their identifying documentation, right? To show that they’re authorized to act on behalf of that child.

But you have to do it all in writing. You have to send it by mail. So we’ll say send it certified so you know it was sent securely and that it was received. But yeah, you can freeze your child’s credit and it stays frozen until they become an adult. And even through that, I think that at that point, it’s then the child’s responsibility when they become an adult, unless you’re a guardian, right? For your child through the time they turn 17 or 18, and you can continue to keep that frozen and help monitor that.

Nice. Well, Mona, if folks do think that they may be a victim of identity theft or if they need more information or looking for education or stuff like that, or any of the great resources there at Identity Theft Resource Center, what’s a good way for them to reach out?

The easiest way is going to be to call or to email or chat with us [inaudible 00:21:25] on our website idtheftcenter.org is a great way to just… Because then we have all that information on there, whether you want to contact us or just read what’s available. You can call our toll-free number. It’s (888) 400-5530, and the 888 is important because if it’s 800, then you get to a completely different phone number.

Which hopefully is not the identity thieves. That would be-

It is not the identity thief.

That would be the cleverest idea ever. But-

Yeah, not the identity thieves, but definitely not one that we want people going to. So yes, (888) 400-5530 and then chatting with us is another great way. We found that most people want to talk through their situation with our advisors, and we are happy to do that. And the other thing is we will chat with people for as long as they need to feel comfortable. So we’ve had people… If it takes an hour on the phone, if it’s over multiple days, months, it doesn’t matter. That’s why we’re here. This can be really confusing and really frightening. And even if it’s… I feel pretty good about what I’m doing, I just need a little bit of a peace of mind. That’s why we are here. It’s what we want to do. We want to help in whatever the way that looks like, so.

Oh, yeah. And I can only imagine just all the fear. And I mean, unfortunately, sometimes with scams, with other things happening, there’s that embarrassment. I can’t believe this happened to me, I can’t believe… All those kind of thoughts. So I’m sure that having a resource there that can actually take the time to allow folks to know that this happens, this happens to a lot of individuals. And then be able to walk them through all those different steps to be able to protect themselves and hopefully mitigate the effects of everything happening is a really, really great resource.

Thank you. Yeah, we’re happy to provide it. It does, it feels very personal because they’re using your identity, but it isn’t personal. You’re right. You’re one of a number. And not that that’s necessarily… It makes some people feel better, but just know that, yeah, it’s nothing to be ashamed about. This is their job. And unfortunately, some of them are very good at their job and scamming people and stealing identities and selling it and misusing it. So that’s why we’re here is we’re staying on top of those trends so that folks don’t have to worry about it themselves. They can just call us or email or chat, and we are happy to provide whatever information is needed.

That is awesome. And then Mona, I don’t know if you can tell me this, but as you talk about the grant and understanding the effects of ID theft on individuals with disabilities, if perhaps a listener is someone who perhaps fits somebody with a disability or somebody that was a victim of abuse or kind of the other things that you talked about, could they reach out to you? Is there a way for them to get that information to you, to help you along with that?

Yes, absolutely. I would love that. People can actually reach out to me directly. So my direct line at work is (858) 634-6388, and my email is… An email is definitely the best way to reach me. My schedule gets a little bit wonky, so email is definitely better. So it’s mona@idtheftcenter.org. And yes, I am happy to answer any questions. And we even do presentations. So even if you’re like, Hey, I have a group of folks that I work with, or a group of folks that I think would love to hear this information, or a group of folks that would love to provide you feedback about using technology and disabilities and identity crimes, please feel free to reach out. I’m happy to have conversations.

Awesome. We’ll put all that down in the show notes as well. Well, I think you already kind of touched on this, but just as we have a little bit of time left, give us that one piece of advice. What can we do to keep ourselves, our loved ones, our families, our friends, or our organizations, I guess anyone as safe as possible from identity crime?

Yeah, I’d say the high level things, definitely, I would say freeze your credit. Make sure you’re setting up multifactor authentication. And if you get any correspondence that you weren’t expecting or something that you’re just not so sure about from anyone, whether it’s a friend, family member bank, go back to the source of truth. Go back to the original source where you know have a verified phone number. And if you don’t know what that is, definitely call us, if it’s a public company and we can help verify those numbers for you. But those are probably the biggest things.

Excellent. Well, Mona Terry, thank you so much for coming on today. For telling us about all the great things that you do with the Identity Theft Resource Center. Such a great resource for folks experiencing, I mean, just an absolute horrible thing to happen. Like you said, kind of a personal violation with people stealing your information and actually trying to do other things to affect folks. So we’re so glad that you’re there in order to help them get the answers to the questions and also the education they might need to not have to face this, or at least hopefully never have to face this as it comes along. So thank you so much for coming on the show.

Thank you so much again for having me.

Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on Assistive Technology Update? If so, call our listener line at (317) 721-7124. Send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org or shoot us a note on Twitter @INDATAproject. Our captions and transcripts for the show are sponsored by the Indiana Telephone Relay Access Corporation or InTRAC. You can find out more about InTRAC at relayindiana.com. A special thanks to Nicole Prieto for scheduling our amazing guests and making a mess of my schedule. Today’s show is produced, edited, hosted, and fraught over by yours truly. The opinions expressed by our guests are their own and may or may not reflect those of the INDATA Project, Easterseals Crossroads or supporting partners or this host. This was your Assistive Technology Update. I’m Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. We look forward to seeing you next time.

Bye-Bye.