$100 Billion-A-Year Medical Care Fraud

January 17, 2010

Healthcare fraud is big business. Last year scammers and organized crime groups bilked an estimated $100 billion last year according to a new article Health care: A ‘goldmine’ for fraudsters from CNNMoney.com.

Medical Identity theft is the most lucrative aspect of the medical fraud business, and the most common method of gaining access to personal medical records is when someone with legitimate access to the data sells the information to criminals. But that’s changing.

According to the CNN article “Increasingly, criminal groups are hacking into digital medical records so that they can steal money from the $450 billion, 44-million-beneficiary Medicare system — making the government, by far, the “single biggest victim” of health care fraud, according to Rob Montemorra, chief of the FBI’s Health Care Fraud Unit.”

To learn more about the risks you face when your medical records go online, see my blogs:

While the government is the “single biggest victim”, every individual whose records are stolen will feel the pain.

The most common way scammers and criminals make their money is by sending in false bills to insurance companies and Medicare for medicines, equipment, in-home health care, or treatments that were not prescribed or requested.  Criminals also ‘resell’ an individual’s medical records to an uninsured person in need of medical care.

While the aim of the criminals behind medical ID theft and fraud is to steal money, the tampering with your medical information can place you at serious risk if doctors base medical decisions about your care on the falsified information in your file.

The government isn’t the only one footing the bill. In addition to the indirect costs to the government and insurance companies that every consumer pays for medical fraud, the average cost to an individual victim of medical ID theft was close to $1,200 according to Javelin Strategy & Research, a research firm specializing in trends in security and fraud initiatives. Javelin’s research also found that in 2008 the average incident of health care identity fraud netted the criminal $19,000, which is four times the earnings of overall ID theft.

In addition to the risk to your medical records, these thieves also gain access to the information that accompanies your records – including your name, address, phone number, social security number, insurance company, and more – placing you at high risk for traditional ID theft as well.

Stay vigilant

Always check your insurance benefits statements to see if there are charges or claims that are not yours. Notify your insurance company if your financial ID has been stolen, and notify your financial institutions if your medical ID has been stolen.

Linda

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Techniques Used By Fraudsters On Social Networking Sites

October 20, 2009

Repost: Originally posted and prepared by the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3)

Fraudsters continue to hijack accounts on social networking sites and spread malicious software by using various techniques.

  • One technique involves the use of spam to promote phishing sites, claiming there has been a violation of the terms of agreement or some other type of issue, which needs to be resolved.
  • Other spam entices users to download an application or view a video.
  • Some spam appears to be sent from users’ “friends”, giving the perception of being legitimate. Once the user responds to the phishing site, downloads the application, or clicks on the video link, their computer, telephone or other digital device becomes infected.
  • Another technique used by fraudsters involves applications advertised on social networking sites, which appear legitimate; however, some of these applications install malicious code or rogue anti-virus software.
  • Other malicious software gives the fraudsters access to your profile and personal information. These programs will automatically send messages to your “friends” list, instructing them to download the new application too.

Infected users are often unknowingly spreading additional malware by having infected Web sites posted on their Webpage without their knowledge. Friends are then more apt to click on these sites since they appear to be endorsed by their contacts.

Tips on avoiding these tactics:

  • Adjust Web site privacy settings. Some networking sites have provided useful options to assist in adjusting these settings to help protect your identity.
  • Be selective of your friends. Once selected, your “friends” can access any information marked as “viewable by all friends.”
  • You can select those who have “limited” access to your profile. This is for those whom you do not wish to give full friend status to or with whom you feel uncomfortable sharing personal information.
  • Disable options and then open them one by one such as texting and photo sharing capabilities. Users should consider how they want to use the social networking site.
  • If it is only to keep in touch with people then perhaps it would be better to turn off the extra options which will not be used.
  • Be careful what you click on. Just because someone posts a link or video to their “wall” does not mean it is safe.

Those interested in becoming a user of a social networking site and/or current users are recommended to familiarize themselves with the site’s policies and procedures before encountering such a problem.

Each social networking site may have different procedures on how to handle a hijacked or infected account; therefore, you may want to reference their help or FAQ page for instructions.

Individuals who experienced such incidents are encouraged to file a complaint at www.IC3.gov reporting the incident.

Linda

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What the Fraud!

September 2, 2009

The following article is the first interview in a series between Jessica Walker who rites Safer in the City for SaferDates.com and Linda Criddle. SaferDates will be running interview segments twice a week on their site or the next few weeks.

What the Fraud!

“Safer in the City” by Jessica Walker

Segment One

Jessica: What should our members do to prevent their identity and or financial information (i.e. credit cards, account numbers) from being stolen on or offline?

Linda: A few key steps can make a real difference in protecting your identity and financial information.

Consider what information about you is online – Search to find the total set of information that you – and others – have shared about you online. What have you posted, friends posted, family members, employers, schools, groups, associations, clubs, teams, and church groups, posted?  If you donate to charities, do their sites place your name and amount of donation on their sites? Have you ever posted a resume? (There is nothing wrong in posting resumes, but restrict contact and address information until you’re actually interviewing, and TAKE IT DOWN when you’ve landed the job!). Check online county records; if you own property find out how much information is available on you and your property – I’ve seen cases where in addition to the basic information, the registrar’s office also displays information about floor plans, and loan papers – which include the name of the lending institution, the loan number, and people’s SSN’s and signatures.  Look to see if they show power of attorney documents, what information is available on your birth certificate, and of any children’s birth certificates. If previously married and divorced what information can be gleaned from these records? Once you have a firm understanding of your footprint of possible exposure, work to remove, or have removed, any information that you don’t feel is appropriate. Discuss with others where your privacy boundaries are so that they do not over-share about you, and ask others for their boundaries so you can be respectful of their safety and privacy needs as well.

Secure your computer. If your computer isn’t protected from viruses and other malware your financial information, your passwords, and everything else you store on your computer or do online will be abused. This concept is so basic, yet only 20% of the US population adequately protects their computers. If the cost of security software is prohibitive, use one of the excellent free services.

Use strong passwords. Passwords do not have to be hard to remember, just hard to guess. Never use information about yourself as a password. They need to be long (8 or more characters) and use uppercase, lowercase, numbers and symbols. This isn’t hard to do. For example text messaging short-codes can really help make this easy – 2BorNot2B? (To be or not to be, that is the question) or MaybeL8r (maybe later).

Check your credit history and freeze your credit. I’d guess that less than 10% of people consistently check their credit histories to ensure nothing is damaging their credit scores. By law, you have the right to three FREE reports each year. You may choose to pay to have a company monitor your credit for you, but unless you’ve had real trouble with ID theft in the past this is probably not a necessary expense. If you are not actively seeking a line of credit now or in the next month, freeze your credit. This is one of the simplest things you can do, but a step that few actually take. This blocks anyone from taking out a loan or opening a new credit card in your name. It’s easy to do – contact one of the credit bureaus – and is either free or low cost depending on their criteria.

Only purchase from reputable online stores. The price may be cheaper at a store with no reputation, but you don’t want to gamble with your financial information. To find out if a store has a good reputation, the Better Business Bureau has an online site where you should be able to look up this information. Keep all purchase confirmation emails in case you need to dispute something.

Beware of scams. Far too many people ‘give’ away their information to criminals by falling for scams in email and on the web. NEVER use a link provided to you to get to a site, find the URL yourself. You want to be in the drivers seat when going to sites online – that way you end up where you intended to, not on a clever fake site.

Physical world requirements. In addition to the safety steps above, physical items need additional protections. Shred financial documents; far too many people are careless with financial materials yet more ID theft is still carried out the good old dumpster diving way. Protect your possessions like your wallet and purse because a significant amount of ID theft is done by someone the victim knows, including parents, siblings, children and close friends.

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