IDENTITY THEFT
Tips on How to Protect Yourself
- Do not throw out credit card statements, bills, insurance papers, or bank statements where a criminal could retrieve them from the trash. Shred or destroy them first.
- Keep a list or photocopy of all your credit cards, account numbers, expiration dates, and telephone numbers of the customer service and fraud departments in a secure place, so that you can quickly notify your creditors if your cards are lost or stolen.
- Never give out personal or financial information over the phone to anyone who calls to solicit a purchase or donation.
- Be wary if anyone calls you to “confirm” personal or financial information.
- Do not leave personal information lying around and do not lend your IDs to friends.
- By federal law, you are entitled to one free credit report every year from each of the three agencies using the website www.annualcreditreport.com. Get a new report from a different agency every four months in order to track any improper uses of your credit that could indicate identity theft.
What to do if you become an Identity Theft Victim
- Immediately contact the police and file a report.
- Notify your bank and credit card companies and send them a copy of the police report.
- Cancel your credit card accounts and your bank accounts, and open new accounts with new numbers.
- Contact the three national credit bureaus to add a “fraud alert” to your credit file. The 3 bureaus are:
- Experian – (888) 397-3742
- Equifax – (800) 525-6285
- TransUnion – (800)680-7289
The Ohio Attorney General’s Office has instituted an Identity Theft Verification Passport program. Once a police report istaken and the victim’s identity confirmed, you can fill out a “Passport” application that the officer can provide. The officer can assist you in filing the application, which should take less than 10 minutes.
The “Passport” application and police report is then sent to the Attorney General’s office, which verifies the information and issues a Passport card. This card helps victims identify themselves when someone else commits crimes using the victim’s
stolen identity.
For more information on the Passport program, call the Ohio Attorney General’s office at (888) 694-3463 or visit
www.ag.state.oh.us.
CONSUMER FRAUD
Common Consumer Frauds
Fake Checks – Consumers receive a phony check as a prize or for work or goods, and are asked to wire part of the money back to the recipients. Consumers do not realize the check is fake until after they have wired the funds.
Advance Fee Loans – Consumers have been asked to pay a fee for a loan or credit card. The loan/credit card did not materialize.
Guaranteed Loans or Credit – These offers may be for home-equity loans that do not require equity in your home or for unsecured credit cards, without regard for your credit history. After paying the required fees, you will typically be turned
down for the loan because you do not meet the “qualifications,” and the promised money never appears.
Credit Repair – Consumers are told they can pay to have negative information removed from their credit reports or to establish a new credit record. This cannot be done and the schemes are illegal.
Vacation Prizes – Often, the accommodations are poor and the time you select is not available.
Health and Diet – Consumers are offered pills and herbal formulas at a substantial cost to control weight gain or cure hair loss. Be careful of ads that use mysterious phrases such as “miraculous cure,” “secret formula,” or “ancient ingredient.”
Chain Letter – Normally the consumer is asked to send a small amount of money to names listed on the letter. Often, the letter claims it is legal or approved by the government. Chain letters are almost always illegal and most people who
participate lose their money.
Work-At-Home – The most common are envelope stuffing or craft assembly that require the consumer to pay a fee to get started. Those who respond usually receive no supplies. Instead, they simply receive instructions on how to place the same ad.
Investment Opportunities – Consumers are promised outrageously high rates of return with no risk. The promoters of fraudulent investments often operate a particular scam for a short time, spend the money they take in, and close down before they can be detected. They will often reopen, using another name, to sell another scam.
Buyers’ Club – A consumer is billed, usually on a credit card, for memberships that were not authorized by the owner of the card.
Phishing – Someone pretending to be an official, from a bank or government agency, asks a consumer to verify or confirm personal information for a made up reason. Some actually pose as an employee from a fraud department. Most often, legitimate inquiries of this nature will not ask for your personal information.
If you feel you have become a victim of any type of fraud or scheme, report it to your local police department, or to the city/state consumer protection office, and to the Federal Trade Commission. You may also wish to contact the National Fraud Information Center at (800) 876-7060 or by email to the Fraud Watch home page on the Internet www.fraud.org. You should never feel embarrassed. Reporting such situations is important. Very few frauds are actually reported. The lack of exposure allows the person committing the fraudulent acts or schemes to continue on to the next person.
PREVENTING THEFT OF FUNDS IN ORGANIZATIONS
Recognize The Warning Signs
Regularly examine your prior year’s financial activity to see if revenues are on track. If not, find out why. If the past records are in disarray, obtain the bank statements and check them to determine when you should be expecting money to come in.
Make sure that expenses are recorded, verified and approved by the group before purchases are made. Periodically audit the books with unannounced cash counts, inventories of equipment and examination of the underlying documents that
show your accounts receivable and accounts payable. These measures can uncover phony purchases, unrecorded sales, and routine pilfering of property.
Keep an eye on the “unpaid” list, especially in fundraising sales. Always balance the accounts for your fundraising programs.
Bounced business checks could indicate funds being stolen from your account.
Unexpected declines in profits or increases in expenses may be a sign that cash is being siphoned off.
Slow collections can be a device to mask embezzlement.
Unusual write-offs of bad debts may be a cover-up for fraudulent financial schemes.
Cash handlers who never take a vacation could be covering their tracks. It is best to rotate duties occasionally and get another person to do the job for at least a short period, in order to get a better perspective on what is going on at each workstation,
especially in those positions where employees are handling cash.
Establish Internal Controls
Require checks to be countersigned by two responsible officials.
Endorse all checks “for deposit only,” and provide the specific account number.
Do not keep cash lying around. Establish protocols that require regular bank deposits to be made every day, every other day or at least weekly.
Have two people count all cash and fundraising monies.
The Treasurer should verify all incoming money and provide receipts.
Have a person other than the treasurer go through the incoming mail.
Delegate the responsibility for receiving checks and cash to someone other than the person who records the incoming funds.
Make sure that volunteers who are responsible for ordering goods and supplies are not the same ones who are responsible for receiving them or paying for them.
If possible, do not give the authority to write off bad debts to the same person who has the authority to pay bills.
The above steps are not enough by themselves. Take an inventory of property and have bank accounts audited by an outside party annually. If you can, screen your volunteers and have them submit to a security check before handling money. Even with the finest internal auditing system, the danger of collusion still exists. Therefore, some organizations protect themselves by bonding their members. Bonding is an insurance policy that covers an organization for losses of money or property that stem from dishonest acts of a "bonded" member. Last but not least – try not to become an organization that depends on one or two people
to handle all financial activity.
Don’t take on more than the organization can handle in a safe, auditable manner. If you suspect embezzlement, take action immediately. A lack of internal controls can be very costly and ultimately ruin the reputation of your entire organization.