Attorney General/Identity Theft
Computer Crimes
Tips for Safe and Secure Online Transactions 

Attorney General/Identity Theft
http://www.ago.state.ma.us/

The Attorney General of Massachusetts and Curry College Public Safety recommends that the individual who believes that they have been the victims of identity theft take the following actions:

1. File a report with Public Safety and keep a copy for yourself;
2. Inform all banks and credit card companies with whom you have open accounts;
3. Report the theft to one of the three national consumer credit reporting bureaus.

Here are the toll-free telephone numbers for each of the three national consumer credit reporting bureaus to use when placing a fraud alert:
Equifax: 800-525-6285
Experian: 888-397-3742
Trans Union: 800-680-7289

Consumers with questions about these new protections can contact Curry College Public Safety at 617-333-2222 or ext. 2222 or Attorney General Reilly's Consumer Hotline at (617) 727-8400 with questions, or they can call a special Identity Theft hotline set up by the Federal Trade Commission at 1-877-IDTHEFT (1-877-438-4338).

www.ago.state.ma.us 
www.consumer.gov/idtheft

Computer Crimes
Increasingly, criminals and con artists are using high technology, computers, and the Internet to attempt to take advantage of people. We find these predators both in new areas, such as "cyberstalking," "hacking,” Internet consumer fraud and ID theft.

A few of the common problems that people must be aware of are:

• Larceny (e-commerce via stolen credit cards and identity theft)
• Fraud (Internet Auction fraud)
• Assault (hate e-mail)
• Internet Gambling
• Illegal Sales via the Internet (Alcohol, Firearms, prescription drugs)
• Malicious Destruction of Personal Property (computer data destroyed by viruses)
• Theft of Trade Secrets
• Wholesale Pirated Copyrighted Software

http://www.ago.state.ma.us/filelibrary/internetguide.pdf

Tips for Safe and Secure Online Transactions
Avoid Making Purchases From A Company You Do Not Know:
If you have never heard of the company and you don't know its reputation, check with the Better Business Bureau in the area where the company is located and check with the Attorney General's Office for consumer complaints. If you cannot get verification about the company, you may want to decline to do business with it. If you are inclined to do business with the company anyway, make sure that the web site provides an offline address and telephone number, so that you can contact the company if you need to. You also may want to pay for the transaction with a credit card, which is the method of payment that gives you the greatest consumer protections.

Is The Company Based Outside of the United States?:
If you are doing business with a company that is outside of the United States, make sure you understand how much you are paying for items you purchase (are the prices stated in United States dollars or other currency?). Do you understand how long the delivery will take or what you will need to do to return the item? Do you know how to reach this company if you need to? You should understand that credit card protections for unauthorized use of your card may not extend to purchases made outside of the United States. (You may want to check with your credit card company in advance if you have questions.)

Before Paying, Confirm That The Server Is Secure - or Better Yet, Only Provide Your Credit Card Number To A Customer Sales Representative by Telephone:
You should always be cautious when you provide your credit card number to someone else, whether online or offline. When you provide your credit card online, the risk to you is that an unintended third party may be able to obtain access to your credit card number. If you are comfortable providing your credit card online, you ideally want to know the merchant, and you want to do business with a site that is secure. This means that when you send your credit card number to a merchant, the information you send should be encrypted -- turned into a secret code -- when it is sent. You can check the policy of the site to see a statement about the security of the site, but to determine for certain whether the site is secure, when you are at the screen where you are asked to enter your credit card number, you will see a symbol on the bottom of your browser window of either a padlock or a key. If you see these symbols, your credit card number should be secure, but encryption is not foolproof.

If you do choose to provide your credit card number to the merchant web site to purchase your product or service, print out a record of the purchase, which most merchant web sites permit you to do. This record will be helpful if problems arise.

To avoid problems, you may want to locate the customer service telephone number on the site you are visiting, and place your order over the telephone rather than over the Internet.

Method of Payment:
Because federal law protects consumers from fraudulent use of credit cards, using a credit card is the safest method of payment. (You are only responsible for up to $50 if your credit card has been used for purchases you did not authorize, but there are some limitations, including when you use your credit cards with companies that are outside of the United States.)

As with all credit card purchases, it is important to regularly review your monthly statements and immediately report any unauthorized charges to the merchant and your credit card company.

Learn the Details (Delivery Dates and Returns):
Does the web site tell you when you should expect the product to be delivered, whether and how returns can be made if you or the recipient of your gift is not satisfied with it, and how you can contact the merchant in case of problems? If the web site does not provide information about delivery dates and returns, you may want to rethink doing business with the merchant. Understand that some web sites will not permit you to make returns at "bricks and mortar" stores, while others do. If it is important to you to get a gift to someone by a particular date, order as early as possible and check the delivery dates specified by the site. We suggest that you take the web site's statements about delivery dates with a grain of salt, and if the timing is very important, you may want to explore other options. (Even though there are rules requiring companies to meet promised deadlines for Internet orders, if the deadline is not met, no after-the-fact remedy is going to help.)

Understanding the Privacy Implications of Doing Business Online:
If you do not want a merchant web site or a third party web site to know your identity, you may want to avoid making purchases online. Once you make a purchase online, the merchant web site will likely keep a record of your identity, and will store that information along with information about how often you visit the web site, and what you click on when you visit the site. It is possible that the merchant web site will share all of this information with others. You can check the privacy policy of the merchant web site to learn what the company says it will do with the information it collects about you, but these policies are often difficult to understand and there are no guarantees that the merchant web site will adhere to its own policy.

Third party web sites include advertising companies that place banner ads on the web sites you visit. Third party ad servers track information about you across web sites where they have placed banner ads and which you visit. It is possible that once you provide personal information to a merchant web site in order to make a purchase, including your name and mailing address, a third party ad server will acquire and store that personal information. At that time, the ad server can combine your personal information with all of your web browsing practices, including information gathered from your visits to all of the web sites where they have placed banner ads which you have visited, whether or not you have made purchases there.

You can try to get more information about the practices of third party web sites by locating the privacy policy on the merchant web sites you visit, but these policies may not be fully accurate, especially concerning the information practices of third party web sites.

How is Private Information Used:
Currently, web sites that collect and share information about your web browsing and purchasing practices appear to be using the information for commercial purposes, such as delivering you ads that reflect your interests or sharing your information with telemarketing companies that may send you catalogues or product offers.

Consumer Hotline - (617) 727-8400