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Kind Of ID Theft That Works
A 56-year-old man in Salem has stolen Taylor Dark's Social Security number and it seems there's nothing she can do about it.
Dark, a 22-year-old Oregon State University engineering student and former Eugene resident, is the victim of an obscure but insidious kind of identity theft. The Salem man isn't using her name, just her Social Security number, or SSN. He isn't racking up all kinds of charges and wrecking her credit. He might be an undocumented worker who doesn't want to draw attention to himself, but does want to work, get electrical service, buy a cell phone, borrow money and the myriad other things that require a credit history.
Because the thief stole her SSN, but hasn't yet tried to take her money, police are unlikely to go after him. So the man " police and at least two Oregon electrical utilities know his name " may well continue using Dark's number because he knows that government bureaucracies and business entities have policies that make it easy on thieves and hard on victims. In at least two cases, courts have concluded that stealing "just" a Social Security number may not even be against the law.
Known as "synthetic" identity theft, it's far more common than the better-known theft of a person's name and SSN, according to the Federal Trade Commission. What frustrates its victims: The traditional tools for combating ID theft " fraud alerts and credit freezes " typically don't work.
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