ID theft rises again in area

A Hilton Head Island man says he never tried to buy more than $5,000 of furniture and jewelry in Texas or order a $3,600 computer from the Internet -- but someone who stole his credit card information did.

That's what Anthony, who asked that his full name not be used in this article, told the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office and the Fort Worth Police Department in November when he filed identity theft reports with both agencies.

"It's frustrating ... very, very frustrating," said Anthony, whose credit card number was used in at least seven fraudulent attempts to buy merchandise, the most recent in February. "It's stopped a little while now, but we were getting hit quite a bit."

Nearly 230 residents in the Hilton Head-Beaufort metropolitan area also complained of having their identities stolen in 2008 -- 12.6 percent more than the previous year, according to a recently released report from the Federal Trade Commission.

The trade commission report is based on statistics recorded by the Consumer Sentinel Network, an online database of consumer complaints available only to law enforcement. The network stores complaints filed with the commission, the Identity Theft Assistance Center, Better Business Bureaus and other agencies.

Nationally, more than 313,000 complaints about identity theft were filed in 2008, up from more than 259,000 in 2007, the report said.

Investigators in Fort Worth traced Anthony's credit card information to two men in Oklahoma, one of whom admitted he received packages from various locations and forwarded them, unopened, to a Nigerian woman he met online, according to the sheriff's office report. The men were not arrested, and the case was turned over to the FBI.

Anthony spent months resolving the situation with his credit card company, which ultimately removed the charges he said he did not make. He also bought insurance for the card when his record with the company was cleared.

"Now if my wife and I go to a restaurant or a store or something and all of our numbers are on the slip that we sign, we black them out," said Anthony, who never figured out how his information might have slipped into someone else's hands.

In Beaufort County, the majority of identity theft cases are related to the "foreign-born illegal community," said Sheriff P.J. Tanner. Though the office receives reports from residents affected by financial transaction fraud and other identity-related crimes, the number is not substantial, he said.

Beaufort County made 109 arrests for fraud in 2007, the most recent year for which data was compiled by the State Law Enforcement Division. Fraud includes identity theft and other crimes.

Statistics from the city of Beaufort and towns of Port Royal and Bluffton were not available Wednesday evening.

Common sense can help people protect their information, Tanner said. He suggested shredding sensitive documents and mail, being careful when making financial transactions online and over the phone and safeguarding Social Security numbers.

"If you go through an incident involving the loss of your identity and it being used by someone else, it's an ordeal in and of itself," Tanner said. "You can never let your guard down when it comes to your personal identity and identifiers about you. That's a daily thing that you need to be concerned about."

Many identity theft cases cross state lines and even national borders, overwhelming and frustrating law enforcement agencies restricted to their own jurisdictions, said Mike Prusinski, vice president of public affairs for LifeLock identity protection service.

The increased availability of private information on the Internet and desperation borne of a shaky economy give identity thieves opportunity and motive, Prusinski said.

"It's a perfect storm that has allowed this crime to grow now eight years in a row," he said, citing data from the commission report. "It's not just organized crime any more. It could be someone living down the street."