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CNN Live Saturday

More Americans Becoming Targets of Identity Theft

Aired May 18, 2002 - 22:31   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RENAY SAN MIGUEL, CNN ANCHOR: More Americans are the target of a non-violent, but often devastating form of crime, identity theft. When it comes to your credit history, someone else could become you and could cause your disastrous results.

Bruce Francis of CNN Financial News explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUCE FRANCIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the movie "Changing Lanes," Ben Affleck gets control of Samuel L. Jackson's credit history, just about ruining his life.

SAMUEL L. JACKSON, ACTOR: I wasn't bankrupt yesterday and I'm not bankrupt today!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm sorry, Mr. Gibson. The computer says you are.

JACKSON: Now it doesn't!

FRANCIS: About 13,000 residents of mostly affluent neighborhoods around the country are hoping that they don't meet the same fate. Ford's credit division has sent out letters like this one, alerting consumers that their credit histories have been stolen.

Thieves repeatedly broke into the files of credit reporting agency Experian over the past 13 months, leaving a Ford electronic signature.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We feel very confident that our security and our processes are sound. But they can always be improved and we're looking to do that.

FRANCIS (on camera): Experian says that the thieves used a stolen Ford password. Ford says they don't know how the break-ins happened and they can't rule out employee involvement. Computer security experts say that's a good place to start looking.

RICH VAN LEEUWEN, FORD MOTOR CREDIT: A lot of these attacks happen because of insiders that have particular knowledge of how the application works, or get help from somebody from the inside without even knowing that they're helping the attack happen. FRANCIS (voice-over): The 13,000 consumers who are affected should start looking, too. Since the theft of credit history is far more serious, say, than the theft of a credit card.

RICHARD POWER, COMPUTER SECURITY INSTITUTE: You could buy a car, you could buy a house. You could open up a bunch of credit cards and travel all around the world. You could buy airplane tickets. You could do just about anything that you could do with real credit, you could do with stolen credit.

FRANCIS: Ford alerted the FBI of potential criminal activity in mid March, but didn't finish alerting consumers until this week, more than a year after the first credit report was stolen.

Bruce Francis, CNN Financial News, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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