That's the title of a Wall Street Journal opinion piece today by Cyrus R. Vance, Manhattan District Attorney.
Vance reveals that thousands of people will be stunned to learn that the tax returns they worked hard to get in before the deadline will be rejected in the coming weeks and months.
Why? Cyber criminals have stolen their identity, filed a return in their place, got the refund and ran with the money. When the real tax return comes in, it's rejected. The problem is identity-theft tax fraud. This increasingly common scam costs taxpayers $5 billion a year. Yeah, that's billion with a 'b'.
Generally, it takes six months and a lot of lost time for stolen identity cases to be resolved. That's especially hard if you count on the return to help pay for bills. A recent report by NBC news found that some taxpayers are being victimized year after year - even if their accounts have been flagged by the IRS. In a recent report to Congress, the IRS's taxpayer advocate noted that the agency is "falling further and further behind" in blocking fraudulent claims.
What Vance does not cover is that in many cases this can be prevented by training the taxpayer to not fall for the tricks that cybercriminals use to get hold of their identity in the first place. All family members need to get security awareness training to make sure they do not fall victim to cybercrime. The brand new $29.95 Kevin Mitnick Home Internet Security Course has two modules that specifically train people to prevent their identities from being stolen: 'Giving Out Personal Information' and 'Protecting Your Identity'.
As part of the introduction of this new course, the first 500 people that click the BUY button will get this full course for free, with the only request they write a review after they have done the course.
Security awareness training for the whole family is a must these days.
