Cactus Village Community

Street Smarts: Car Thefts Burglaries & ID Theft

Jul 10, 2003

At a recent Cactus Park Community Alliance meeting, Detective Ken Gaddis of the Phoenix Police Dept. gave a Crime, Problems and Prevention seminar. The agenda was on Street Smarts: How much do you know about the following statistics for the Phoenix area? 33% of the residential burglaries have been in unsecured homes. Most adults arrested for burglary are released in less than 24 hrs of being arrested. Most stolen property is not taken to pawn shops. Stolen goods can be found anywhere from yard sales to swap meets. The most highly addictive drug currently is Methamphetamine. The average meth users habit is $40-$50 daily. Heavy meth users spend $100 or more daily. Arizona ranks #1 for mail thefts. Secure your mail. Drop it off in blue boxes or at a postal service.

Last year (2001) within a 5 square mile area of our Cactus Village area there were 793 reported burglaries.

Arizona is #2 in Automobile thefts. More than 100 cars are stolen in Arizona every 24 hrs. The prime time for residential car thefts is from 1am to 5am. Shopping malls are also popular theft areas. Arizona ranks #6 in the nation for Identity Theft. The most common areas burglars go to first in a residential burglary are: the Master bedroom, the Den or Office area of the home. Burglars today are targeting safes and file cabinets that contain your personal information. With this information and high tech computer/printer equipment, they can, within 6 hours, have ruined your credit by running up thousands of dollars in charges.

If you are a victim of Identity Theft, call these hotline credit card company phone numbers: Equifax 800-525-6285; Experian 800-397-3742; Trans Uninion 800-680-7289. Helpful web sites are: www.idtheftcenter.org and www.privacyrights.org. All of these organizations can help or guide you with any ID theft situations.

Remember in all of these cases, you are no exception for being a crime victim. Anyone can be a target. Common sense and security precautions are the key elements to guarding against being a victim.

The new standardized form, already posted on the government's identity theft Web site at www.consumer.gov/idtheft and backed by the financial industry, will eliminate the myriad forms, allowing consumers to fill out one document and provide photocopies to creditors.

Most major creditors, including Bank of America, GE Capital and Merrill Lynch, already have agreed to accept the FTC's standard form, experts said Sunday.

That should make it easier, but, unfortunately, no less expensive for consumers to handle the mound of work required to clear their names after they've been victimized by identity fraud, said Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a San Diego consumer group that provides information on identity theft.

The seven-page form must be filled out, photocopied and mailed to the three major credit bureaus, as well as to each creditor duped into opening an account by an identity thief.

Identity theft experts urge consumers to send the form by certified mail, return receipt requested, despite the cost of about $4 per letter. The reason: It prevents creditors from claiming that they never received the consumer's paperwork--an occurrence consumers commonly report. Some creditors also still expect the FTC's ID Theft Affidavit to be notarized--a requirement consumer groups find onerous.

"If you have a victim dealing with 30 different credit card accounts, and you have to pay a $10 notary fee each time, that's $300," Foley said. "If creditors want this form notarized they should be willing to pay the cost."

The average victim of identity fraud spends 175 hours and an average of $808 trying to clear their names, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center.

"The burden of proof still solidly rests on the shoulders of the victim," said Foley, who was part of the identity fraud task force that created the new form. "A great deal more needs to be done.". . . ☺