Fallout from our financial down turn

[lookout123]

Privacy act info was far more protected at the car store I worked at than ANY of the numerous mortgage companies I've seen the inside of. The car store operated exactly how you described. The mortgage companies are a completely different story. If you did an inspection you would find of loan officers you would find:

1) Client application packages sitting on desktops, credit apps, pay stubs, w-2's copied right inside.

2) Stacks of old CBR's sitting in drawers.

3) If you could follow them home you'd also see copies of that stuff at the LO's home - for the day they decide to go to a competitor, they can recontact all previous clients.

I've seen it time and time again.

[tw]

With just some simple information from that credit application or from previous returns, another example of profitting from identity theft. From the Wall Street Journal of 12 Mar 2008:

Identity Thieves
Target Tax Refunds
IRS officials say they have taken steps to combat the problem. But the agency "has not done enough to improve identity theft procedures for victims of identity theft or to secure its filing system from fraudulent filers," Ms. Olson said in her report to Congress. IRS procedures "are reactive rather than proactive and assume taxpayers will have the wherewithal to contact the IRS and work their way through layers of employees until they reach someone with the authority to adjust the accounts," she said.

"Too often, victims of identity theft receive more scrutiny from the IRS than the perpetrators of identity theft," Ms. Olson said.