Commercial Identity Theft

Although most attention surrounding identity theft is on how it affects individuals, stealing a company's identity can be even more dangerous, and more costly. There are several good reasons for this. Most companies generally have a lot more money to steal than individuals and companies have a lot of people who make use of that identity and keeping track of them can be difficult.

Commercial identity theft can work two ways. Corporate identity thieves can use the company name to steal from it or they can use a stolen corporate identity to steal from its customers or the general public. The problem has become so pronounced that most big companies now employ their own watchdogs to keep track of who is using company information and for what purpose.

Stealing From The Company

By stealing a company's identity, thieves can gain access to corporate funds. On one case from Florida thieves gained access to corporate bank account numbers and used them to obtain more than $250,000 in goods and services. In another case, corporate identity thieves used fake payroll checks to get banks to hand over the company's money.

Crimes such as these are more "low risk" since the identity being stolen is not tied to one person. The money being stolen is less likely to be missed since the company has any number of legitimate accounts payable and the fraudulent charges are just a few "trees in the forest."

Stealing From Customers

There are many examples of ways identity thieves use legitimate company names to steal from its customers. One such scam that the International Chamber of Commerce estimates involved more than $3.9 billion, thieves would set up phony web sites that looked like the real thing and induced people to provide credit card numbers and other personal data that was used for further crimes. According to security professionals, thieves pay computer "crackers" by the account number for such information.

In another well publicized theft, Bank of America said it "lost" computer tapes containing the account information of 1.2 million customers, including some members of Congress. There have been other cases where companies have been caught selling that personal information. Still another case of corporate identity theft involved a fraudulent advertisement being placed in the name of a legitimate business offering low-interest loans. People who called the fraudulent telephone number sent in thousands in processing fees for loans they never received.