Identity Theft from Teen's Free Music

Just after Christmas, her cell phone was
suddenly shut off from receiving any
incoming calls. Then came purchases and
credit cards from all across the country.

At one point, the Seattle area woman even
discovered there was an order in her name
for a $500 phone to be shipped to Florida.

At this point she and her husband were
well on their way to suffering the
financial ravages of identity theft
and credit fraud.

According to the story, investigators
determined a free music file sharing
program called "Limewire"
downloaded by the woman's
15 year old son was the
genesis of her identity theft
problems.

Evidently, hacker identity thieves had
planted the "Limewire" file within the
shareable music files for unsuspecting victims
to mistakenly download which subsequently
shared her banking, billing, & private
document folders.

So, instead of her son just getting free
music - the family got a pile of fraudulent
bills and credit headaches for many months.

With the stolen information, not only did
the identity thieves order cell phones, but
they also ordered at least two computers and
conducted money transfers in at least 2 states
each.

The identity thieves even set up gambling
accounts in the United Kingdom and Costa
Rica before they were caught by authorities.

Police arrested two teenagers in Florida
who admitted being the identity thieves
that committed the $10k+ fraud against
the Washington state woman. But, authorities
indicated they were not sure if others
could also be involved as identity thieves
often trade stolen credit and personal
information with other would be thieves.

So, our tip for today is to advise your
children to only download music from
your chosen on-line music store - like
iTunes - and avoid altogether the free
file swapping web sites. Additionally,
since teenagers are often tempted by
free offers from identity thieves, it's
best to reinforce your parental direction
by installing a firewall, anti-virus,
and anti-spyware software to catch would
be identity theft files in real time before
they can do their damage.

We run not 1, not 2, but 5 overlapping
tools (constantly updated) to protect
our servers from malicious attacks by
identity thieves.

Finally, be aware that no amount of software
protection can ever out perform common sense
and frequent scrutiny of your financial accounts.

We'll supply the anonymous tips to keep you on the
look out for the new schemes, scams, & identity
theft tricks designed to steal your family's hard
earned income and financial well being.