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From Jon Schuppe
A few days after Christmas, Louette Duvall was chatting with a customer outside his eyeglass store in Sacramento, California, when a security guard Asked if he knew someone was passing in front of his car parked nearby.
The men were thieves and when she realized what was happening, they had taken off with her purse and briefcase and all that was there at the time. Inside: credit cards, checkbooks, Social Security documents, her address book and her mail, she added.
Over the next few days, Duvall, 67, a widow, struggled to freeze or close her bank accounts and alert her credit card companies due to fraudulent charges. She then began to think about how criminals could use information about her to cause other damage, such as creating fake credit cards and checkbooks to buy things on her behalf, or producing a fake tax return for a fictitious refund.
the Federal Trade Commission, where she hoped to file a complaint and ask for help on how to limit her losses.
Nobody stopped him.
She visited the FTC Identity Theft website, identitytheft.gov, and found the following message:
"Due to the closure of the government, we are not able to offer this website service for the moment. "
Duvall is cried out.
"It was like I could not stop it and my government is not there to help," she recalled.
"I have good credit," Duvall added. "I'm vulnerable."
Many victims of identity theft feel the same way as the government's shutdown begins its fourth week and the FTC is one of many federal agencies to stay in power. Eve.
Some victims of identity theft have lost their lives. social media to complain about the lack of help offered by the FTC. A columnist from the Washington Post wrote about his experience. It's impossible to know how many identity theft calls remained unanswered during the shutdown, but the FTC's data suggest that it usually receives thousands of theft complaints from customers. Identity per week.
A spokesman for the FTC could be reached for comment on Friday; the public affairs office of the FTC was closed.
Identity theft services are part of the suspended activities of the FTC. Its Excluded Telecom Number Register is offline, as is the Consumer Sentinel network, which helps law enforcement officers track identity fraud and other consumer complaints.
"You can not enter information, you can not extract anything, etc. In summary, the FTC is currently not able to help consumers or the forces of the company. Order with issues of identity theft, "said Susan Grant, director of consumer protection and privacy at the Consumer Federation of America, an association of nonprofit consumer groups.
Although the FTC does not intervene directly on behalf of the victim, it provides step-by-step advice on how to handle their particular situation and allows them to file a complaint, which generates an affidavit that 39 they can use to alert credit reporting agencies and financial institutions.
This is crucial in identity theft cases, in which the more the victim reacts quickly, the easier it is to repair the damage, say the experts.
"Most people really do not know what to do and how." to solve the problem and minimize the risk of additional problems. They therefore need the advice of someone. The FTC is a great resource for this, "said Grant. (The FTC's website still contains general information and tips on identity fraud.)
In Response to the FTC Closing Other organizations have intensified their efforts.One of them is the theft of non-profit identity The experts pointed out that the victims could also seek the help of Local and Local Consumer Protection Agencies
Duvall is very keen on the FTC because it reacted quickly to a fraud complaint filed a few years ago.
"They're watching you. They protect you. That's why I contacted them, "she said. And now, I can not tell them anything. "
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