ID THEFT PLAGUES BUSINESSES, BANKS.

Byline: Deborah Adamson Daily News Staff Writer

Sandy Darby is furious.

Last week, a couple masquerading as her company's business associates passed phony corporate checks with her husband's forged signature in laser printing. The thieves' take at two major retail stores: $4,000.

The next day, a man tried to cash more than $600 in fake checks at a North Hollywood cash-checking business. The checks bore her company's name and even sported a counterfeit Bank of America logo, sans address.

A check-cashing business approved a $500 check, which her bank cashed. An employee at another check-cashing business got suspicious and telephoned Darby. But before the police could be called, the suspect left.

``This is killing me,'' said Darby, the owner of a family-run tour business with five employees. ``I'm a small business.''

Luckily for her, Darby won't have to pay the money lost on the forged checks. The bank and retail stores will be paying for it. But she must deal with the headache of clearing up credit reports and changing the account number.

Darby is among thousands of Americans confronted with identity thefts.

``Identity thefts are overwhelming credit bureaus, postal inspectors and the Secret Service,'' said Ed Mierzwinski, speaking on behalf of the California Public Interest Group, a consumer group based in Mar Vista. ``We think the trend is up, up, up.''

It's difficult to estimate the actual size of losses incurred by banks and businesses that grant credit, but estimates run up to $4 billion a year, said Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a consumer information and advocacy group in San Diego.

According to a recent report by the U.S. General Accounting Office, the Secret Service estimates that $750 million was lost last year from identity theft, up from $450 million in 1996. Credit reporting companies received 523,000 fraud inquiries in 1997, up from 35,000 in 1992.

The reason is simple: It's so easy to obtain personal information.

For example, people can steal preapproved credit card solicitations in the mail, dive behind dumpsters of office buildings to get corporate documents, or access family Web pages on the Internet to get personal data.

Givens said one woman was victimized because her health insurance company uses her Social Security number as her member identification. Authorities believe that an employee of the insurance company stole her Social Security number.

While consumers usually aren't charged for the fraud, it does tangle up their credit records, Givens said. It takes from six months to several years to fix the record, depending on the severity of the problem, she added.

Check fraud is one of the banking industry's biggest problems, costing banks about $1 billion a year, said Sonia Barbara, a spokeswoman for the American Bankers Association in Washington.

But a new law signed by the president last week should help consumers and business victims. The Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act of 1998 makes it a felony to commit identity theft. While it already is a crime to impersonate someone else for fraud, this law specifically focuses on ID theft.

Last week, the American Bankers Association launched a radio campaign to warn seniors about this crime.

The group's warning: Be careful about giving out personal information such as Social Security numbers and bank account numbers. Carefully monitor your bank and credit-card accounts to spot any activity that wasn't yours, and contact the bank right away if you find any.

You also can have your credit report blocked, to be released only when you call in with your personal identification number, Mierzwinski said.

Consumers who think they might be victims should contact the nation's main credit bureaus right away: Transunion [phone], Equifax [phone], and Experian, formerly TRW [phone].

To be taken off the mailing list for preapproved credit cards, call (888) 5-OPT-OUT.

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Photo

PHOTO (Color) Sandy Darby holds two of the counterfeit checks charged against her business account for her Northridge tour agency.

Phil McCarten/Daily News