Identity Theft Ring Targets Governors Of States At End Of Alphabet
While he governor of California is autographing cars as part of his state's massive garage sale, his colleagues in West Virginia, Vermont, Wyoming and Washington state are receiving mysterious HP and Compaq laptops in the mail, and are possible victims of identity theft.
The laptops sent to Vermont governor Jim Douglas were purchased with a credit card opened in his name, and other officials in the state have received similar suspicious shipments.
The National Governors Association has issued a bulletin about the suspicious shipments. It also said that Vermont's laptops were paid for with a credit card issued in Douglas' name - but that was not one actually held by the governor or issued by that state.
Officials in Washington and Wyoming said those computers had been purchased with credit cards whose account numbers did not match any issued by those states. West Virginia State Police Sgt. Mike T. Baylous declined to comment on how the laptops shipped there may have been paid for.
"The State Police and the FBI are working jointly to get to the bottom of why these computers were sent to West Virginia," Baylous said Thursday.
Let's hope that the states and FBI get to the bottom of this before the apparent criminals work their way up the alphabet.
State govs saying 'No thanks' to mystery laptops [AP]
FBI investigating laptops sent to US governors [Computerworld]
(Photo: The_WB)
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Comments:
@Trai_Dep: Staten Island would be fine. Good chance the organized crime figures responsible for this live there anyway.
Credit Card and Band fraud is completely out of control. When is someone going to come up with a real solution here? Tattoo barcodes/id's on our wrists are the answer. I want mine to say "Not Sure".
Zidaho?
@Psychosocial: Start mandating those randomized number keychains, and add fingerprinting to it as well. Fingerprint reader = $30.
Ya gotta be low on the food chain to get an HP/Compaq laptop. Just try even calling them to explain the situation.
A simple solution to Credit Card ID theft? Require the billing zip code to match the actual billing zip code.
Many gas pumps in central florida require this.
This sounds like a practical joke, albeit an illegal one. A real thief would have the computer shipped to an unrelated address for pickup.
@wcnghj:
Um, I'm not sure what you're saying here. Does that mean that, if the billing zip code is 01234, someone can't buy gas in zip code 56789 ?
@Nascar24Dude: umm... the pump asks you what your billing zip is. you're allowed to go anywhere you want.
Practical Joke?
Maybe.
Also could be the tip of the iceberg of the computers that were shipped to other addresses... such as the 10,000 computers shipped to a purported government agency which turns out to the front for an illegal enterprise.
These could be white hat hackers. They are demonstrating how they can easily do identity theft with well known people so these big shots will actually start enacting laws with teeth that make a difference.
Us end of alphabet folks must be a buch of dumb fucks that fall for everything. Two very recent scams pulled on WV: the state treasurer transfers 2+ million dollars to the accounts of Kenyan scammers and our physical therapy board posted online in a meeting notice the access code for conference calling which resulted in a $475,000.00 bill thanks to a scammer in Hong Kong using it! No money has been recovered.
@wvFrugan:
the state treasurer transfers 2+ million dollars to the accounts of Kenyan scammers
WHAT?! *goes to Google News*
@Psychosocial: Ha! I just watched that the other day.
I don't want a barcode but I do want one of those little cars.
@Laura Northrup:
North Carolina woman indicted in state auditor scam
By Andrew Clevenger
Staff writer
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A federal grand jury in Charleston has indicted a North Carolina woman for her part in a conspiracy that defrauded the West Virginia Auditor's office of about $2 million.
In an eight-page indictment unsealed Wednesday, federal prosecutors charged Angella Muthoni Chegge-Kraszeski, 33, of Raleigh, with obtaining a false South African passport in the name of Christina Ann Clay, then using the false identity to create four dummy corporations in North Carolina.
Two of the bogus businesses had names similar to entities doing business with West Virginia's government, including Deloite Consulting Corporation and Unisyss Corporation, according to the indictment. The actual business names are Deloitte Consulting LLP and Unisys Corporation.
Chegge-Kraszeski allegedly set up bank accounts under the similar but incorrect business names at TCF Bank in Minneapolis. Using those names, she then contacted West Virginia Auditor Glen Gainer's office and had the funds diverted to the Minnesota accounts, the indictment alleges.
Chegge-Kraszeski and co-conspirators known and unknown to the grand jury then began funneling money to banks in Nairobi, Kenya, according to the indictment.
@Laura Northrup:
State physical therapy board chief resigns
By Eric Eyre
Staff writer
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The state Board of Physical Therapy's chief administrator and an office assistant have resigned amid an investigation into a $475,000 phone bill charged to the agency by a Taiwanese scammer.
Board Administrator Frankie Cayton, who has directed the agency for 21 years, plans to leave Sept. 14. The office's only other employee resigned earlier this month.
The resignations apparently weren't related to the ongoing investigation, said board President Lesleigh Barber Sprouse. The agency plans to move its office from Clarksburg to Charleston, and both employees didn't want to relocate, Sprouse said.
"It was just coincidence with moving and the phone bill and the timing of Frankie's resignation," Sprouse said. "Frankie said it was a hardship to drive back and forth, or to move and relocate. She's been a very dedicated employee, and we appreciate everything she's done for us."
On June 9, Cayton, who makes $47,500 a year, sent an e-mail to Sprouse, saying she didn't plan to continue to work for the agency in Charleston.
Two weeks later, Cayton alerted the Secretary of State's Office that the physical therapy board's conference call access code had been "compromised by persons unknown."
It was later revealed that a therapy board employee posted a conference call "host" code on the Secretary of State's Web site in February, which allowed someone in Taiwan to make unauthorized conference calls and charge them to the therapy board in Clarksburg.
...
@ColoradoShark:
That's what I'm hoping too. It's sad that it often takes this kind of thing to really hit home with our elected officials.
I wonder if the West Virginia governor will have any better luck getting customer service from HP than the average consumer? At least some vendors will not ship to a zip code that is different from the billing address zip code. Makes it a little tough to send a gift sometimes.
@wvFrugan: Please provide a direct link to these articles. I live in WV, too and keep up on the news and have not heard a thing about this.
@wcnghj: Same in Central Massachusetts .... gas pumps, Walmarts, etc., are requiring that you punch in the billing zip code as part of the CC validation process. A good idea; not foolproof but helps.
Just wipe the machine's hard drive and put Ubuntu Linux on it.
If these machines came directly from the vendors, I don't know if there is any bad software on there. But it is still possible, I suppose.
@H3ion: Some CC companies allow adding an additional mailing address to an account for the purpose of doing gift shipments.
@Psychosocial: I do have a solution. The trouble is, it is complicated and requires a new government agency. So Republicans would never permit it.
@trixrabbit:
Oh, ok, that makes more sense. In wcnghj 's original post, he said nothing about the machine asking for a zip code to be entered into it. By saying "requiring the billing zip code to match the actual billing zip code", I thought he meant you had to buy within the same zip code for those particular machines. He didn't mention the machine ask for one ( and I've never had a machine ask for one; but, hey, I'm from Tennessee ).
I'm with ColoradoShark on the idea of this being white hat hackers... that was my first thought.
I'm surprised I hadn't heard about any of this on the news. Vermont tends to make a big deal of stories like this since we have nothing else to report on. :P
I really hope this is by whitehats and that they start working on other projects to bring awareness on how lax security is.
@Skaperen: If you're worried about the laptops being tampered with, wiping the hard drive and installing Ubuntu is not good enough. They could have a hidden hardware-based keylogger for all we know.
When you actually open the credit card, though, it's a bit "grey hat," isn't it? I mean it /is/ a crime.
Ahh Mr.President your 800 pizzas are here.
@nycaviation: Even if they didn't the organized crime figures that live there don't like being messed with.
Wait...they stole his identity, got a credit card in his name, bought computers...and had the computers sent to the person whose identity they stole...already paid for (albeit with a fraudulent card)?
Identity Theft FAIL.
I suggest we annex an island or locality and name it "Zzynith", as a firewall from future attacks. Any suggestions of which one?