Identity Fraud Monitoring: Cutting-edge identity theft detection

June 2004

What is fraud monitoring?

Fraud monitoring is the new, state-of-the-art, consumer-based solution designed to monitor an individual's personal identity. Its purpose is to detect identity theft faster and more comprehensively than any service or product heretofore available, thereby mitigating the effects of the fraud before more serious damage can occur. Fraud monitoring — a proprietary system developed by Fair Isaac and distributed through its consumer subsidiary, myFICO — goes well beyond existing approaches, which are based exclusively on changes to the individual's credit file.

Who is Fair Isaac Corporation?

Fair Isaac is the recognized leader in fraud detection solutions for the payment card industry. The company's Falcon™ Fraud Manager protects more than 450 million active payment card accounts worldwide, and processes 65 percent of all credit card transactions. Businesses that rely on Fair Isaac technology include:

• Financial service providers: The world's 10 largest banks, 96 of the top 100 US banks, the top 50 US card issuers, and 90 percent of the largest US small business lenders.
• Insurers: Nine of the top 10 US property and casualty carriers.
• Retailers: 17 of the top 20 US retail card issuers.
• Telecommunications: Eight of the top 10 US wireline and all of the top 10 US wireless providers.
• Government: More than 50 government agencies and public entities.

How does fraud monitoring work?

Fraud monitoring, also known as myFICO Identity Theft Security, monitors more than 400 data sources at regular intervals. Changes — whether to an individual's name, address, phone number, date of birth or social security number — are detected. The version currently offered by Identity Theft 911 does not monitor changes to the consumer's credit file. When a suspicious change is detected, a myFICO security alert is emailed to the monitored subscriber. Upon receipt, the individual can log in to view details of the change and, if necessary, take steps to investigate it further or resolve the issue.

What types of database activities are monitored?

Monitored activities include:

• Change of address. If you have not moved recently and receive an alert indicating that your address has changed, someone may be tampering with your identity.
• Social Security Number. Identity thieves often obtain Social Security numbers as a way of stealing other information about you. An alert mentioning a Social Security number record change is cause for serious concern that someone may be trying to steal your identity.
• Phone number changes. An alert indicating a phone number change, without your prior knowledge, is another indicator of potential identity tampering.
• Name Change. Did you change your name recently? If you did not, and an alert indicates a name change, someone may be trying to manipulate your identity to create a fictional identity or otherwise use your identity for criminal purposes.
• Death Check. The death check alert detects attempts to falsify your death and reuse your Social Security number — a serious indicator of possible identity theft.
• Date of Birth. If your date of birth appears inconsistently across the monitored databases, or if the date changes, you should expect a notification. An alert of this nature could help prevent further tampering with your identity before it begins to have a serious effect on your credit.

How does the alert procedure work?

Most individuals choose to view their fraud alerts by email. However, subscribers are provided with three options:

• A subscriber may elect to receive an email once a week, whether there is an alert or not. In this instance, subscribers are also notified if no changes have been recognized that might compromise their identity.
• A second option is to receive emails only when a new alert is detected.
• Finally, subscribers can elect to log on to myFICO's Web site and check for alerts manually.

What does an individual need to know about the alerts?

Identity theft alerts are red flags that warn consumers of potential identity theft. Whenever new information appears, the details are posted on the individual's alerts page. An identity theft alert email is then sent so that a subscriber can immediately review the information and decide what steps to take.
Alerts are issued when new information appears about a consumer. It should be recognized that it is possible never to see changes at all. This is a good thing: It means that new information has not been detected about the consumer's identity. When no new data has been found, the message "no recent activity on file" appears.

 

 

What should an individual do if a change is detected?

If new data does appear and an alert is issued, consumers should remain calm. It doesn't necessarily mean that the consumer is a victim of identity theft. There may be many legitimate reasons for a person's data to change — for example, an individual may have gotten married and changed his or her name, or moved to a new address. If an alert has been issued, a consumer should check over the information and decide whether to contact AIG (when appropriate) or the Identity Theft 911 Crisis Resolution Center.

Identity Theft 911 strongly recommends Fraud Monitoring to individuals seeking a proactive defense against identity theft. In fact, all resolution victims are automatically enrolled in one year of fraud monitoring by Identity Theft 911. When combined with credit monitoring, the two solutions create a formidable early warning system.