It’s traumatic to lose a loved one. That trauma is intensified when your loved one’s identity is stolen.

Nearly 2.5 million deceased Americans’ have their identity stolen each year. How is that happening? Several ways. One way is that thieves are reading the obituaries. They look for personal information such as birthday, mother’s maiden name and home address.

Better Business Bureau of Southern Arizona warns consumers that thieves move quickly using the stolen identity to purchase trips, electronics, cars, etc. while you are overcoming grief and attending to your loved one’s personal effects. The experts tell us to contact each credit reporting bureau: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. Ask them to flag the account as “deceased”. This stops the chance of credit being issued.

Contact the Social Security office, banks, investments companies, insurance companies, and if applicable, the mortgage company. You will need an original copy of the death certificate for each of the entities you contact. They should mark the account as closed due to death of the account holder. Of course, if there are joint accounts, just remove the name of the deceased.

Don’t forget to cancel the deceased’s driver’s license. You don’t want a duplicate floating around in the hands of thieves.

The second way for fraudsters to get the social security number of the deceased is by chance. They make up social security numbers and it just happens to match the number of someone who died. Plus, unfortunately Uncle Sam has made Social Security numbers available in the Death Master File which is widely available on the Internet.

This is the time of year of tax returns. A fraudulent tax return using the deceased person’s social security number works great for a con artist to make money via refunds.

The third way a deceased identity is stolen is by a family member. Most of us can’t imagine a family member doing such a thing. Just know it does happen in some families.

Better Business Bureau of Southern Arizona is warning consumers about scams related to the passing of former Apple CEO, Steve Jobs. Many of the scams claim that consumers are eligible to receive free Apple products.

Within hours of Jobs’ death, scammers began announcing that companies were giving away free Apple products ‘in memory of Steve Jobs’, and it’s just the beginning, warns BBB.

In a recent Facebook scam, the announcement read: “In memory of Steve, our company is giving away 50 iPads. R.I.P. Steve Jobs”. The ad instructed people to click on a link to get a free iPad. After clicking on the link, users were asked to complete an online survey that required personal information, an action that often leads to identity theft.

Scammers use fake product offers to get you to click on the links they contain for several purposes:

1. To infect your computer with malware in order to obtain your personal information to steal your identity.
2. To drive traffic to certain websites that pay the scammer a commission for every survey completed, every product purchased, and/or every account compromised.

“Past experience tells us that con artists will invent more Steve Jobs offers, including fraudulent (more…)