Identity Theft: A growing epidemic? We are all vulnerable

1. IDENTITY THEFT: A GROWING EPIDEMIC?
WE ARE ALL VULNERABLE
Godwin Emmanuel, Oyedokun
HND (Acct.), BSc. (Acct. Ed), MBA (Acct. & Fin.), MSc. (Acct.), MSc. (Bus & Econs.), MSc. (FACI),
MTP (SA), ACA, FCTI, ACIB, MNIM, CNA, FCFIP, FCE, FERP, CICA, CFA, CFE, CIPFA, CPFA,
ABR, CertIFR
godwinoye@yahoo.com
+2348033737184, +2348055863944 & +2348095419026
President, ACFE Lagos Chapter
Partner, Audit and Forensic Services
Ibraheem Jimoh & Co Chartered Accountants
Being a lecture delivered at the January edition of the monthly Meeting of members of ICAN Lagos
Mainland & District Society, held at the RAILWAY RECREATION CLUB, beside Lagos Mainland Local
Government Secretariat, APAPA ROAD, Oyingbo, Lagos
On January 21, 2017

2. INTRODUCTION

3. INTRODUCTION
 According to the Federal Trade Commission,
identity theft was the number one fraud
complaint during calendar year 2008.
 And limiting your use of your personal computer
may not help much: a study released by Javelin
Strategy and Research reported that in 2009,
most identity thefts were taking place offline, not
online -- just the opposite of what many of us
here present might think.
 One other troubling finding: the study found that
43 percent of all identity thefts are committed by
someone the victim knows.

4. INTRODUCTION
 The methods criminals use to steal personal information
change frequently, particularly those that exploit
technology.
 In addition, while identity theft leads to billions of dollars
in losses each year, we consumers aren’t necessarily on the
hook for the full tab.
 In fact, financial institutions assume most of the liability
for spending-related fraud.
 This paper does not in any way pretend to cover all aspect
of Identity theft, but it will do justice to the salient issues
that would help us all as participants in taking extra care
in our dealing either as corporate organisation or
individual.
 The rest of this paper would explore the meaning of
identity theft and identity fraud, how it is being
perpetrated, how to protect ourselves, how to detect same
and what to do if it is established.

5. IDENTITY THEFT AND IDENTITY FRAUD:
DEFINITIONS

6. IDENTITY THEFT AND IDENTITY FRAUD:
DEFINITIONS
 Identity theft: Identity theft happens when fraudsters
access enough information about someone’s identity (such as
their name, date of birth, current or previous addresses) to
commit identity fraud.
 Identity theft can take place whether the fraud victim is
alive or deceased.
 Identity theft can lead to fraud that can have a direct impact
on personal finance and could also make it difficult for one to
obtain loans, credit cards or a mortgage until the matter is
resolved.
 Identity fraud: Identity fraud can be described as the use
of that stolen identity in criminal activity to obtain goods or
services by deception.

7. 7
USES OF IDENTITY DETAILS
Fraudsters can use identity details to:
 Open bank accounts.
 Obtain credit cards, loans and state benefits.
 Order goods in your name.
 Take over your existing accounts.
 Take out mobile phone contracts.
 Obtain genuine documents such as passports and
driving licences in your name.
Stealing an individual’s identity details does not, on
its own, constitute identity fraud, but using that
identity for any of the above activities does.

8. 8
FINANCIAL INSTITUTION AND THE
BURDEN OF LOSS
 Consumer information is readily available via the
Internet and criminals engaged in a continuous
game of technological one-upmanship with law
enforcement, one wonder what the future holds for
our financial security.
 Will sophisticated fraudsters be able to overcome
advances in voice and fingerprint recognition once
the technology ultimately becomes cost-effective for
mainstream use?
 Will financial institutions continue to eat the losses
deriving from unauthorized transactions, or will
liability shift more to the consumer at some point?

9. 9
STEMMING IDENTITY THEFT IN NIGERIA
 In Nigeria, we are familiar with online payment platforms -
Quickteller, Virtual Terminal Network, PocketMoni, InterSwitch –
as well as the use of automated teller machines (ATM) in
facilitating e-commerce.
 But with the increased flexibility in handling transactions comes
the added cyber challenge of identity theft or credit card theft
 Lack of a central and unique electronic identification system has
made it virtually impossible to authenticate a specific user in a
uniform fashion across services/platforms.
 The NIMC Act is an option in dealing with some threats to our ICT
infrastructures and a way out in dealing with identity theft.
 The Commission was established to “establish, own, operate,
maintain and manage the National Identity Database in Nigeria”

10. 1
0
FACT ABOUT IDENTITY THEFT FACTS
Common Victims Ski and Play Tennis
 Major credit bureau Experian found the common
activities of people who were more often
victimized by identity theft to have involved in
any of the following activities:
 Skiing
 Tennis
 Politics
 Cultural/arts
 Foreign travel
 Charities/volunteering

11. 1
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FACT ABOUT IDENTITY THEFT FACTS
 One in 700 thieves are Caught
 Most Common thieves are your family
 Million Records Exposed in Data Breaches
 Common Victims are Children & Deceased
 Smartphone Owners’ Habits Increase Chance of
Fraud
 Victims need five full weeks off to restore Identity

12. 1
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HOW IDENTITY THEFT ARE COMMITTED
 The human imagination and creativity are endless when it comes
to stealing things,” says Peter Keane, dean emeritus and professor
at the Golden Gate University College of Law.
 Identity thieves commit their crime in several ways:
 Your Trash
 Your Mail
 Phishing
 Skimming
 Straightforward Theft
 Conning
 Address Manipulation
 Information given away
 Dumpster diving
 Shoulder surfing
 Wallet or document theft

13. 1
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HOW IDENTITY THEFT ARE COMMITTED
 Bogus phone calls
 Pretexting
 Business record theft
 Malware
 Spam
 Spear phishing
 Hacking
 Restaurants
 Data Breaches
 Hacked Shopping Sites

14. 1
4
PROTECTION AGAINST IDENTITY/THEFT
AND FRAUD
The following are also recommended for adequate protection against
the risk of identity theft and fraud:
 Don’t throw out anything with your name, address or financial
details without shredding it first.
 If you receive an unsolicited email or phone call from what appears
to be your bank or building society asking for your security details,
never reveal your full password, login details or account numbers.
Be aware that a bank will never ask for your PIN or for a whole
security number or password.
 If you are concerned about the source of a call, wait five minutes
and call your bank from a different telephone making sure there is
a dialling tone.

15. 1
5
PROTECTION AGAINST IDENTITY/THEFT
AND FRAUD
 Check your statements carefully and report anything suspicious to
the bank or financial service provider concerned.
 Don’t leave things like bills lying around for others to look at.
 If you’re expecting a bank or credit card statement and it doesn’t
arrive, tell your bank or credit card company.
 The three credit reference agencies offer a credit report checking
service to alert you to any key changes on your credit file that
could indicate potential fraudulent activity.
 It is particularly helpful to check your personal credit file 2-3
months after you have moved house.

16. 1
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WHAT TO DO AS A VICTIM OF
IDENTITY FRAUD
The victim of identity fraud should:
 Act quickly
 Report it to your bank as soon as possible.
 Report the matter to the relevant organisation
 Depending on their advice, you should then alert your
local police force
 Report all lost or stolen documents
 Get a copy of your credit report
 Look at your credit report closely
 The credit reference agencies will contact lenders on
your behalf where fraudulent applications have been
made or fraudulent credit accounts opened in order to
restore your credit history to its former state.

17. HOW TO PREVENT IDENTITY THEFT

18. HOW TO PREVENT IDENTITY THEFT
Preventing identity theft starts with managing your personal information
carefully and sensibly. The following among others are recommended
precautions to keep your personal information safe:
 Only carry essential documents with you
 Keep new cheques out of the mail
 Be careful when giving out personal information over the phone
 Your trash is their treasure
 Make sure others are keeping you safe
 Stay on top of your credit
 Protect your Social Security Number
 Follow your credit card billing cycles closely
 Keep a list of account numbers, expiration dates and telephone
numbers filed away
 Create passwords or PIN numbers out of a random mix of letters and
numbers

19. HOW TO PREVENT IDENTITY THEFT
 Commit all passwords to memory.
 When using an ATM machine, make sure no one is hovering over
you and can see you enter your password.
 When participating in an online auction, try to pay the seller
directly with a credit card so you can dispute the charges if the
merchandise does not arrive or was misrepresented
 Adopt an attitude of healthy skepticism toward websites that
offer prizes or giveaways.
 Choose a commercial online service that offers parental control
features

20. HOW TO PREVENT IDENTITY THEFT
 Tell your children never to give out their address telephone
number password school name or any other personal information.
 Make sure your children know to never agree to meet face-to-face
with someone they have met online without discussing it with
you.
 Tell your children never to respond to messages that have bad
words, are scary, or just seem weird.
 Tell your children never to enter an area that charges for services
without asking you first.
 Tell children never send a picture of themselves to anyone
without your permission.
 Make sure that access to the Internet at your children’s school is
monitored by adults.

21. CONCLUSION

22. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
 Identity theft is the fastest growing crime in
Nigeria, the truth of the matter is that the so called
developed country have also recorded the highest
number of cases in the time past, and it is currently
the most common consumer complaint.
 Identity theft costs victims a lot of money, stress and
time, but impostors show no mercy as they continue
to find new and more sophisticated ways to commit
the crime (bestidtheftcompanys.com).

23. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
 Identity theft can cost you a lot of money as well as create
confusion across the breadth of your life, but despite the horror
stories, you have to wonder how prevalent identity theft
actually is as well as what you can do to prevent it (Odysseas
Papadimitriou, 2013).
 Identity theft and fraud are terrifying prospects for consumers,
as they can lead to financial losses and credit score damage.
 However, these types of crime are far less common than you
might think, and you can further reduce the likelihood of
falling victim to them by taking a few commonsense measures
to protect your personal information.

24. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
 Distinguished members of my District (ICAN
LMDS), I can confirm to you that we are all
venerable because the issue of identity theft has
became growing epidemic and sure, exercising
common sense will always be your best defence
against identity thieves, the hope is that advances in
identity verification will also make life more difficult
for criminals in the future.
 Conferences and or training of this nature would
help our members and continue to shape their
consciousness while implementing safety measure or
investing cases of identity theft.

25. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
 Take credit card transactions, for example. Steven
Myers, an assistant professor of informatics and
computing at the Indiana University have this to
say: “A credit-card is supposed to identify the
person, but it is easy to imagine the deployment of
technology which uses a camera to perform facial
recognition, a mic to perform voice recognition, etc.,”
 “Right now those technologies are very expensive,
but research is going on to bring down the cost of
biometric measures, so that should bring down
identity theft a lot.” (Swapnoneel Roy, an assistant
professor with the University of North
Florida’s School of Computing)

26. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
 Still, we can’t expect identity theft to disappear
altogether, in part because the potential payoff will
always allure criminals and in part because we are
increasingly putting more and more of our personal
information online for the world to see.
 Vijay Kanabar, an associate professor of computer
science and administrative services at Boston
University also stated that “the biggest disturbing
trend in identity theft will definitely be social media,
as there will be no privacy.”

27. CASES
 Ayo Animashaun victim of identity theft
 The HipTv boss made this known on July 2015 when he announced on
Instagram that an impostor is trying to rip off up and coming artistes by
demanding payment for airing their music videos on his programme.
 Another Ayo Animashaun impersonating him. He charges and collects money
on behalf of HipTv. This guy mirrors all his posts, It won’t be surprised if he
reposts this to confuse people. His original Facebook account has over 4,800
friends as opposed to the fake account.
TV personality, Ayo Animashaun

28. CASES
 Nigerian Woman in UK Arrested for Identity Theft
 Oluwaseun Adenubi, a 30 year old Nigerian woman in the UK, has been
arrested by the UK authorities and charged with identity theft.
 It was discovered that she stole the identity of another Nigerian-British born
woman so as to have her needs and those of her baby, taken care of by that
country’s tax payers.
 This is according to reports by Daily Mail. Adenubi posed as Rita Ogunkunle to
obtain free NHS medical care during the delivery of her son Moses, and also
got a £3,500 payment in the process.
 In addition to that she has been receiving about £9000/year in state handouts
while living in the east London suburb.
 She also allowed Ogunkunle, 32, and partner Michael Adebambo, 46, to
register as Moses’s parents to get him free NHS care and a UK passport, a
court heard.

29. CASES
 Nigerian twist #1: Trust me — send no money
 The scam: In London, England, a would-be renter is fooled into believing she’s
dealing with a legitimate apartment owner when he tells her there’s no need to
send an advance payment to him.
 The cunning crook spins a story about having trouble with previous renters
and wanting proof of her ability to pay. But he suggests she should send some
money — about $2500 — as an electronic payment to a friend or relative of her
choice.
 That way, he says, it will prove she has the money but it will remain safe.
Here’s the catch: as proof of payment, he asks for a scanned copy of the
transfer payment. A while later, posing as the friend or relative, he uses this
copy to collect the money from a Western Union office.
 The solution: It’s not clear if Western Union was fooled into thinking the
document was an original or if they will pay out on presentation of a copy. All
they would say is that they are investigating the scam.
 Meanwhile, the message is clear: not only should you not send electronic
payments to someone you don’t know and trust but also don’t send them a copy
either.

30. CASES
 Nigerian twist #2: Send me the stuff — I’ll use PayPal
 The scam: Wise to the use of forged checks and stolen credit cards to pay for
items they’re selling, many vendors using services like eBay and Craigslist
now insist they’ll only accept payments via PayPal, especially to buyers who
ask for shipment overseas — usually to Africa.
 Fine. But what happens when you get an email apparently from PayPal saying
your account has now been credited with the money you’re awaiting?
 Well, if you don’t independently check your account, you may have just
received a fake message that’s not from PayPal at all.
 It’s easy to do if the buyer gets your email address and it’s just as easy for
scammers to design a message that looks like the real thing. And that’s what
they’re now doing in a big way.
 The solution: Simple. As suggested above, check your PayPal account to
make sure the money really is there.

31. CASES
 Nigerian twist #3: It’s OK — we’re the FBI, um, the President
 The scam: A resident of North Kenai, Alaska, sniffs out a scam when she
receives a $30,000 check, supposedly from the Central Bank of Nigeria, and is
told to take 10% and forward the rest. She doesn’t.
 Later she gets what seems to be an email from the FBI. It says they’ve been
monitoring her email and investigating the bank and “confirmed your contract
payment is 100% genuine and hitch free.”
 She still doesn’t bite, so a couple of days later the scammers send another
message, this time from the “United Nations 2007 Compensations Payments
Directive” saying the Nigerian government is concerned about its image and
the President wants to pay the woman $300,000 compensation to redeem its
good name!
 Now, of course, they just want her bank details so they can forward the money.
She doesn’t fall for that either.
 The solution: Talk about persistence! As usual, the warnings here are that you
don’t get money for nothing, never wire cash to someone you don’t know, and
don’t give your bank details to someone you don’t know — even someone who
says he’s the President of Nigeria!

32. THANKS FOR LISTENING

33. REFERENCES
 Arowosaiye Y. I, (2013) “The New Phenomenon of Phishing, Credit Card Fraud, Identity Theft, Internet Piracy and
Nigerian Criminal Law” available
at http://www.unilorin.edu.ng/publications/arowosayeyi/THE_NEW_PHENOMENON_OF_PHISHING.pdf accessed
14/01/2013
 http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/fraud_protection/identity_fraud
 http://www.nigerianlawtoday.com/2013/01/stemming-identity-theft-in-nigeria_16.html
 http://www.ncpc.org/topics/fraud-and-identity-theft/tips-to-prevent-identity-theft
 http://www.nigeriacreditreport.com/services/creditadvice/identitytheft.htm
 http://www.ncpc.org/topics/fraud-and-identity-theft/tips-to-prevent-identity-theft
 http://www.nigeriacreditreport.com/services/creditadvice/identitytheft.htm
 https://www.dia.govt.nz/Identity---How-does-identity-theft-happen
 https://www.transunion.com/personal-credit/identity-theft-and-fraud/how-to-prevent-identity-theft.page
 Papadimitriou, O (2013). Identity Theft: What It Is, How It Happens & the Best Protection
 Downloaded from http://www.cardhub.com/edu/identity-theft/
 Leamy, E. (2008). How Identity Theft Happens and How to Protect Yourself: downloaded from
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=4766894&page=1
 Sid Kirchheimer (2013). 10 Ways to Prevent Identity Theft: Downloaded 11/11/2015 on from
http://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/info-09-2013/prevent-identity-theft.html
 www.nimc.gov.ng
 10 Shocking ID Theft Facts of 2012 downloaded on 11/11/2015 from http://bestidtheftcompanys.com/10-shocking-id-
theft-facts-of-2012
 http://www.scambusters.org/nigerianscams.html
 http://jaguda.com/2015/08/11/nigerian-woman-in-uk-arrrested-for-identity-theft/
 http://thenationonlineng.net/ayo-animashaun-victim-of-identity-theft/
 http://wreg.com/2015/11/08/bartlett-woman-charged-with-identity-theft-stealing-362k-from-employer/