Company tries to prevent identity theft

Identity theft occurs every 10 seconds in the United States.

But in South Carolina, some measurable strides have been made with the Financial Identity Fraud and Identity Theft Protection Act signed into law April 2.

One of the major focus points of the bill is that it gives people the option to freeze their credit at no charge.

“This bill is so wonderful because a credit freeze, without a doubt, is the best way to stop theft,” said Scott Mitic, CEO of TrustedID, an identity theft prevention company. “It’s the Fort Knox of prevention.“

Mitic said his company, as part of its identity theft prevention services, freezes its customers’ credit when theft is identified.

Child identity theft and medical identity theft are two emerging areas of concern, he said.

“Someone can get your name and your medical insurance information and have medical procedures performed in your name,” Mitic said. “Even worse than that are people that prey on children. Parents assume that nothing would show up under their child’s name, so they never check.”

Most times a parent doesn’t realize his or her child’s identity has been stolen until 10 or 15 years after the fact, Mitic said.

Sarah Waters, spokeswoman for VeriFone, said her company has three pilot technologies geared toward preventing identity theft and credit card skimming.

“VeriFone’s been in the payment technology (business) for about 20 years now,” she said. “We saw a need for theft prevention and we saw how bad skimming was getting.”

Redbone Alley restaurant in Florence is the only business in South Carolina that has the company’s “On The Spot” brand hand-held, pay-at-the-table devices. The machines are geared toward preventing identity theft by making sure the credit card owner is the only person who uses it while in the restaurant.

Redbone manager Alan Hyman said the restaurant felt it was the next step in credit customer service.

“We just wanted to be able to offer our customers a safer alternative,” he said. “Our servers set it up for the patrons and the customers swipe their cards at the table. They can enter the tip amount they want and they get their receipt right there. This is the only way we do credit in our restaurant now.”

Redbone server Hillary Ingram said the restaurant guests’ credit cards never touch her hands.

“The card never leaves the customer’s sight,” she said. “I don’t have to worry about keeping up with the card at the register and my customers don’t have to worry about what is taking me so long to bring the card back to the table. It works well for everyone involved.”

Waters said Redbone is the test location for On The Spot for the Southeastern region, but 50 locations throughout the nation use the service.

VeriFone is developing a taxicab-based credit card system for payments, along with a secured pay-at-the-pump system at gasoline stations, to prevent skimming and identity theft — a crime Mitic said constantly is morphing.

“The important thing to remember here is that identity theft changes all the time because the thieves change,” he said. “Cash is certainly good because it can eliminate credit card fraud.”

Mitic also said it’s important for people to realize that not having credit at all makes people targets.

“It’s good, but cash can’t take care of someone getting your online bank account number and using it to get a credit card,” he said. “What cash can’t take care of is someone getting your child’s information and using it to get them a Social Security card.

“And what cash most certainly can’t prevent you from is someone getting your Social Security number and using it to get them a license that they, in turn use when they get pulled over for drunk driving.”