ChoicePoint CEO Addresses Stock Sale Issue; Protect Yourself

In an Interview published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution today, ChoicePoint CEO Derek Smith addresses the question of the sale of his stock in between the time when they found out about the theft of consumer data and notification of potential victims. According to ChoicePoint, the sales are part of a prearranged stock trading plan allowed under SEC rules. If this is held to be true, it would be very hard to say that the sale of the stock was based on insider trading. However, the appearance is out there and the average consumer does not know or necessarily care about SEC trading rules. They will just feel violated and angry. If this situation is not resolved quickly and efficiently, ChoicePoint's competitors will reap the benefits and the company may face irreparable harm.

An interesting take on this topic is that in some ways, the business controls used by ChoicePoint worked, but they did not work consistently and in a timely manner. Employee suspicions triggered an investigation and audit, and the audit found the problem. Unfortunately, there were no compensating controls in place at the time of the fraud to catch it before it was too late.

Another interesting note is that the individual arrested and convicted is a Nigerian national who is refusing to cooperate with authorities. So I wonder if the Nigerians are realizing that the 419 e-mails are losing steam and they needed a better way to steal the data directly. Perhaps it is part of a larger multinational crime scheme? There are many important questions that come out of this corporate embarrassment, and as a person who had their identity stolen two years ago, I am not likely to side with the ChoicePoint position on this debacle unless there is clear and convincing evidence that they did everything they could to prevent it. Oops, I forgot, Smith is now saying mistakes were made.

Protect Yourself Against Identity Theft


The recommendation I make to everyone is to put a fraud alert in place with all of the three major credit reporting agencies. It does not matter if it happened or not, this just gives you a little bit of extra mind and control over the use of your credit history. For example, no credit can be issued in my name until the requesting company calls me at my personal phone number to verify that I have indeed applied for the credit. To do this, and you must renew it every two (2) years, contact the three major credit reporting agencies to request a copy of your credit reports and to put fraud alerts in place:

Equifax - www.equifax.com
To order your report, call: 800-685-1111 or write:
P.O. Box 740241, Atlanta, GA 30374-0241

For Fraud Alerts, call: 800-525-6285 and write:
P.O. Box 740241, Atlanta, GA 30374-0241
Hearing impaired call 1-800-255-0056 and ask the operator to call the Auto Disclosure Line at 1-800-685-1111 to request a copy of your report.

Experian - www.experian.com
To order your report, call: 888-EXPERIAN (397-3742) or write:
P.O. Box 2002, Allen TX 75013

For Fraud Alerts, call: 888-EXPERIAN (397-3742) and write:
P.O. Box 9530, Allen TX 75013
TDD: 1-800-972-0322

Trans Union - www.transunion.com
To order your report, call: 800-888-4213 or write:
P.O. Box 1000, Chester, PA 19022

For Fraud Alerts, call: 800-680-7289 and write:
Fraud Victim Assistance Division, P.O. Box 6790, Fullerton, CA 92634
TDD: 1-877-553-7803

I also encourage you to visit the identity theft webpage hosted by the Federal Trade Commission and share it with your friends, family, and colleagues. In the case of my identity being stolen, I was lucky because I received a call from the Sears Fraud Department the day it started and I was able to get fraud alerts placed before serious damage could occur. It was still a pain to deal with, but not nearly as painful as it would have been if I had not been notified.