Miscellaneous | InjuryBoard Phoenix

According to the United States Treasury Department Inspector General, the Internal Revenue Service has had some problems protecting sensitive taxpayer information. Apparently between 2003 and 2006, almost 500 laptop computers belonging to the Internal Revenue Service were lost or stolen which may have exposed personal information of approximately 6000 taxpayers to identity thieves. Amazingly,...

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TXJ Companies has finally come clean with some more details about the number of possible identity theft victims as a result of its failure to abide by credit card processing standards. Discussing this data security breach, in a regulatory filing with the Securities Exchange Commission, the TXJ Companies indicated, Discovery of Computer Intrusion. On December 18, 2006, we learned of suspicious...

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I just learned from an article in the on-line publication Infoworld that your identity and all sorts of personal information associated with it may be available for purchase on the internet for just fourteen dollars. A research report generated by the Symantec Corporation suggests that identity theft criminals can purchase confidential personal information as follows:U.S.-based credit cards...

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Congratulations to State Farm Insurance Company! Its profits rose almost sixty-four percent (64%) to $5.32 billion dollars last year from $3.24 billion dollars in 2005. In my opinion, during this time, I do not think that State Farm acted like very much of a good neighbor to victims of Hurricane Katrina or to other policy-holders who timely paid premiums thinking they would be protected in...

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If you thought that we have been exposed to way too many risks of identity theft, think again. According to the Associated Press, simply using older model photocopiers may present risks of identity theft: That's because most digital copiers manufactured in the past five years have disk drives - the same kind of data-storage mechanism found in computers - to reproduce documents. As a result,...

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Today, the stock market dropped considerably over continuing concerns about the stability of the so-called sub-prime mortgage lending market. Discussing consumer sub-prime mortgage market woes, the Associated Press described recent lender problems as follows:Investors, bracing for a wilting economy, fled the already deflated subprime mortgage sector on more news that lenders New Century...

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Today, the Arizona Republic reported on a series of indictments alleging real estate fraud against five people who work in the real estate industry. These criminal charges may signal some fallout from the once high-flying real estate boom experienced in Arizona these past few years. The Arizona Republic recently reported on several fraudulent schemes which have been used to inflate real estate...

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Today I discovered an interesting and entertaining page on the America On Line web site. Discussing so-called frivolous lawsuits, America On-Line lists as news several lawsuits without real attribution or legitimate discussion about corporate accountability for wrongdoing. Setting aside the issue of whether these lawsuits are in fact real or a political effort to encourage tort reform...

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Yesterday News Channel Five reported that some county records containing social security numbers and other confidential information are readily available for inspection by anybody with internet access which unfortunately presents criminals with an invitation to commit identity theft. How would you feel if your social security number has been published on the internet because it has been...

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The fallout from the data breach involving confidential data stolen from the TJX Companies continues. In Massachusetts, legislation has recently been introduced to shift the cost of a data breach onto retailers who do not follow security standards designed to prevent identity theft. Banks and credit cards currently protect consumers against fraudulent credit card use. However, according to...

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Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court dealt a blow to consumers and businesses who present punitive damage claims to deter future harmful conduct. In a sharply divided opinion, the Supreme Court held that a Plaintiff cannot seek punitive damages to punish a corporation by suggesting actions against non-parties to a lawsuit should play a role in the size of the punitive damage award. A...

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At least two class action lawsuits have been filed and one attorney general investigation has begun so far as a result of a data breach at TJX Companies. Customers who shopped at TJMaxx, Marshalls and other company stores throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico sometime in 2003 and 2006 may have had their personal private account data exposed to computer thieves. According to the...

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According to an article in the publication Newszapp.com, Arizona still ranks highest in the nation for victims of identity theft per 100,000 people. According to the article,In the Federal Trade Commission's annual report released Jan. 25 detailing identity theft in 2005, Arizona had the most victims per 100,000 than any other state with 9,320 cases. Mesa ranked No. 3 in the top 5 cities for...

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Looks like we have another example of data protection gone amiss. The City of Chicago Elections Board faces charges that it disclosed social security numbers and other confidential information belonging to over 1.3 million voters in late 2003 and 2004 when it distributed CD-ROM disks containing this confidential data to alderman and other members of local wards. In Chicago, election candidates...

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According to an article in today's on-line publication Computerworld, the Massachusetts Bankers Association (MBA) reports that identity thieves have been using stolen confidential credit and debit card information stolen by hackers who breached computer systems at The TJX Companies sometime in May of 2006. According to the MBA, compromised cards have so far been used to make fraudulent...

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