Elderly and Senior Citizens Identity Theft Issues

Elders and ID Theft

• Fourteen residents at two Northern Kentucky nursing homes couldn’t figure out why they were being billed for large-screen televisions, clothes dryers, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in electronics. It turned out that employees had stolen their identities and got credit cards in their names. One of the thieves had prior arrests for theft, domestic violence, and drug charges but had been hired using someone else’s stolen identity.
• An aide in an assisted living facility stole the identity of an 89-year-old resident and used it to run up over $3,500 in fraudulent credit card charges for jewelry, furniture, and clothing. She also wrote checks to herself from a bank account belonging to the victim and diverted the woman's mail from the facility to her own home. • After a home care provider was charged with felony residential burglary, felony elder abuse, false imprisonment, and preventing her elderly client from seeking help by cutting his phone line, it was learned that she’d been working for the last six months under the name of her sister, a certified home care provider. The offender had a previous conviction and had served jail time under her sister’s name.
• In 2004, hackers gained access to a database that contained the names, addresses, telephone and Social Security numbers, and birth dates of 1.4 million recipients of In-Home Support Services in California. The data was being used for research purposes by the University of California, Berkeley. Although investigators haven’t determined if the personal information has been misused, the California Department of Social Services, which operates the program, has encouraged all recipients to obtain credit reports to make sure that they haven’t been victimized. Because it took a month to detect the compromise, it’s unlikely that the culprits will be found.

Although research indicates that elders are at no greater risk of identity theft than non-elders, the scenarios above suggest why elders may be vulnerable to certain forms of ID theft. Linda Foley, executive director of the San Diego-based Identity Theft Resource Center, has suggested other reasons:

• Many hospitals and nursing homes use patients' Social Security numbers as identification information; some even print the numbers on patients’ wristbands.
• Many seniors carry their Medicare cards, which include Social Security numbers, with them in case of emergency.
• Seniors are more susceptible to muggers because of frailty.

There’s also the issue of access. Elders with disabilities are likely to have in-home helpers, including personal care attendants, friendly visitors, meal services, etc. The current shortage of in-home helpers has resulted in more seniors hiring “independent providers” directly from newspaper ads or referral services. These workers, who are less likely to have been screened or to be supervised by agencies, have access to elders’ homes, property and documents. Police are also reporting that more attendants are working under assumed names.

The families of the deceased are particularly vulnerable. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center (2007), thieves watch obituaries, steal death certificates, and obtain information about the deceased from Social Security Death Index files. Because the Social Security Administration does not promptly transmit Death Master Files to financial institutions, accounts and credit files may stay open for years. Thieve access the accounts, leaving surviving spouses or other family members with debt or other problems. Family members of deceased persons may also commit ID theft. This is particularly like when the deceased suffered from lengthy illnesses or if there was conflict prior to the death.

The Web site of Michigan’s attorney general describes a case involving three people who were arrested for stealing the identities of more than 100 decedents. One of the alleged perps worked in a hospital emergency room and sent text messages containing dying patients’ personal identifying information to her grown son, which he and his wife used to get credit cards. They also used information they found in obituaries to conduct research on the hospital's database.

An AARP-commissioned study, which used Federal Trade Commission (FTC) complaint data from 2001, found that complainants age 50 and older were more likely than younger people to report certain ID theft crimes (Walters & Jackson, 2003):

• Fraudulently using a complainant's existing credit card account
• Fraudulently establishing a new credit card account in the complainant's name
• Fraudulently opening a wireless account in the complainant's name
• Fraudulently using a complainant's information to commit check fraud
• Fraudulently taking out a personal or business loan in the complainant's name
• Stealing a complainant's identifying information and using it in unsuccessful attempts to commit fraud

Seniors have also been shown to be less likely to take steps to prevent ID theft or mitigate its impact. An AARP study found that seniors are less knowledgeable than others about tools to protect their financial identities and reduce their risk of victimization, despite the fact that many are very fearful of being victimized.