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Understanding Identity Theft

Am I responsible if a thief commits a crime while using my identity?

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Linda Sherry
Director, National Priorities, Consumer Action
http://www.consumer-action.org  
 

Linda Sherry, Consumer Action’s director of national priorities and one of the organization’s chief spokespersons, joined the San Francisco-based national consumer education and advocacy group in 1994 from a background as a weekly newspaper reporter.

Consumer Action (www.consumer-action.org), founded in 1971, has a national reputation for free multilingual consumer education on personal finance issues.

Sherry, who moved to Washington, DC, in August 2004 to establish an office for Consumer Action, is responsible for the organization’s national advocacy work and for the research and writing of Consumer Action’s free educational publications and web site content. Her recent projects for Consumer Action include publications on home buying, credit card terms and conditions, bankruptcy, ID theft, Internet privacy, cell phones and investing vs. savings. Sherry is chief surveyor and coordinator of Consumer Action’s popular pricing surveys of rates for credit cards and telephone services. She is the editor of Consumer Action’s newsletter, Consumer Action News.

Sherry has received awards for Consumer Action publications from the National Association of Consumer Agency Administrators (Excellence in Consumer Education, 1996, 2000 and 2003) and U.S. Office of Consumer Affairs (1995 National Consumer Week). Sherry serves as a member of the National Consumers League Fraud Alliance steering committee.

Before joining Consumer Action, Sherry was managing editor of AsianWeek in San Francisco from 1991-1994. Previously she was a reporter at The Almanac newspapers in Menlo Park, CA; The New York Times Long Island Section and The East Hampton Star in East Hampton, NY. She was the founding editor of the Sag Harbor Herald, a weekly newspaper in Long Island, NY.

Am I responsible if a thief commits a crime while using my identity?

In this video, Linda Sherry details the best ways to prevent identity theft and what you can do if you think your identity has been stolen.

This expert: 28,932 views

This series: 8,856 views

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Tags:

Id

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Theft

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Identity

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Fraud

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Internet

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Abuse

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Stolen

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Scam

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Transcripts

Speaker: Am I responsible if the thief commits a crime while using my identity?

Linda Sherry:No, as a victim of identity theft you are not responsible for the crime or for any of the ill-gotten gains that came out of the crime. However, time and money and the rest of the hassle of dealing with this crime falls squarely on you. So it really is up to you, you are going to have to spend a lot of time talking to lawyers. You may have to spend money; you may have to prove your innocence and this is the real cost of ID theft.

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