The mailbox and the home computer are targets of two new identity-theft scams that have surfaced in Denver, police said Sunday.
In the first, a letter – with a check – arrives telling the recipient they’ve won a half-million dollars in an overseas lottery.
In the second, computer software – allowing users to send music and photo files – steals private information.
The Denver district attorney’s office issued a specific warning last week about LimeWire software.
In the past eight years, identify theft has become the fastest- growing crime nationwide, said Sgt. Ed Tuffield of the financial crimes unit. Most culprits use the stolen money to buy drugs, he said.
“There have been major losses,” Tuffield said. “We may never catch them.”
U.S. Postal Inspector John Salanitro said it takes more than a month of work for identity- theft victims to clear their names.
Each year, $48 billion is lost by consumers and businesses, he said.
Salanitro said the vast majority of scams are on the Internet and only 4 percent arrive in the mail.
In the current lottery scam, a letter arrives in the mail saying the recipient has won a lottery in Canada, Nigeria or the United Kingdom.
The letter, often rife with misspellings, tells the “winners” that they must send money to pay taxes on the lottery money and use the enclosed check to reimburse themselves for the taxes.
The check attached to the letter is a fraud, but by the time the recipients learn it’s a fake, they have already sent the money, along with personal information.
Denver police Detective Steve Warneke says legitimate reward offers never come with requests to send money.
“People get excited about winning money,” Warneke said. “There is euphoria involved.”
In the past, identity-theft victims were mainly the elderly, but a new generation of people who store all their banking and personal information on their computer hard drives is becoming victims, police said.
One scam involves file- sharing programs, such as LimeWire, where users can send each other MP3 files or photographs.
However, the file-sharing programs also can be used as conduits to steal private information from hard drives.
Denver detectives have recovered personal information belonging to 75 people from across the country that included tax records, bank account information and online bill-paying records that were stolen from computers that were using LimeWire.
Warneke also urged people to shred credit-card offers that come in the mail instead of throwing them in the trash where thieves can find them.
Most people don’t know they’ve been ripped off for an average of 44 months, Salanitro said. Victims often find out when they apply to refinance their mortgage that their credit has been abused.
“It’s apathy,” Salanitro said. “People don’t think it’s going to happen to them.”
For tips on preventing identity theft, go to usps.com/postalinspectors.
Staff writer Felisa Cardona can be reached at 303-954-1219 or fcardona@denverpost.com.
This story has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to an editing error, it contained incorrect information about the amount of money U.S. consumers lose annually to identity theft. The losses total $48 billion.
