Thursday, December 11, 2008

Isn't Identity Theft A Serious Crime?

Evidently not.

Yesterday, federal Judge Emmet Sullivan, in D.C. sentenced two women to a mere 6 months in prison for a scam in which they stole the identities of 65 public school job applicants and went on a $40,000 shopping spree. ("Pair Charged In Identity Theft Scheme")

C'mon judge! Identity theft crime is spreading like an epidemic. You should've thrown the book at those ladies.

Granted, the biggest part of the problem is banks making it so easy to steal identities. Everytime we're asked to fill out our social security number and birthdate on some application, we realize than anyone handling that application at any point could easily open an account in our name, no questions asked. Banks could make it more difficult, but they don't.

Anyway, giving such thieves a slap on the wrist is hardly going to deter the crime.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, 65 people is bad. But $40,000 is not all that much of a crime spree. Its only about $610 a person.