Updates to Retail Theft Laws Urged
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One of the retail industry's largest and most influential trade groups is mounting an effort to persuade states to pass laws targeting retail theft gangs, which hit an estimated 79 percent of companies last year.
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Dangerous new ways to try to steal your money are in progress.
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Citing the high-tech theft of credit card numbers from Stop &amp; Shop Supermarket Cos., Massachusetts bankers yesterday urged state legislators to force retailers and others who fail to keep card data protected to pay all costs for fixing security breaches.
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By John Craig, The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wash.  Jun. 16--Secondhand shops would have to join pawnbrokers in reporting transactions to the Spokane County Sheriff's Office under a proposed ordinance aimed at combating theft.
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Rebates are getting easier. Instead of making it as difficult as possible for a consumer to claim a rebate, some retailers are simplifying the process, figuring fewer hassles along the way will build customer loyalty and raise sales.
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Â· Robbers had targeted security van deliveryÂ·  Complaints commission to investigate incident
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The theft follows a simple pattern. A  little girl asks a customer in a shop for help reaching  something on a shelf, and while he or she is distracted another  child steals a wallet or cash from their pocket or bag.
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Proposed changes to law aim to deter insiders and others who sell or deliberately misuse confidential information.
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WASHINGTON -- Tell Santa to hurry if you want him to bring CD or DVD burners and jukebox programs. By Christmas, such gifts might be threatened if Congress passes a new law to fight movie and music pirates.
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Suggested changes to planning law means hundreds of new stores possible, say lobbyists
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(InfoWorld) - An identity theft task force created by U.S. President George Bush has recommended nationally accepted police reports that victims could fill out online, and a change in U.S. law that would require those convicted of such crimes to pay victims for the time used to clear up identity problems. The President's Identity Theft Task Force, which met Tuesday, also recommended that U.S. agencies examine whether their use of Social Security numbers is necessary and called on an interagency working group on ID theft to develop best practices for data security in government. The U.S. government needs to lead by example in protecting consumers from ID theft, Deborah Platt Majoras, chairwoman of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), said. "Identity theft truly is a direct assault on our citizens and attacks the very foundation of the information economy," Majoras said in a joint press conference with U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The task force's recommendations are an interim list, with a full plan of how to attack ID theft to be released in November. But the recommendations released Tuesday are steps U.S. agencies and other groups can take immediately, Gonzales said. About 4 percent of U.S. residents are ID theft victims every year, Gonzales said. Bush established the task force because of "the prevalence of this crime, combined with the lingering burdens and effects on victims," Gonzales said. "When we look at the problem of identity theft, we are reminded that the same technological advances that have improved our lives have also given new and broad opportunities to criminals, including identity thieves," he added. "As with any crime, victims suffer feelings of violation and stress, but in these cases, victims have the added burden of essentially cleaning up the mess that the identity thieves leave behind." Among the task force's recommendations: -- The U.S. Congress should change laws to require that defendants convicted of ID theft pay victims for the time they spent clearing up the mess. -- The U.S. should adopt a universal police report that ID theft victims can fill out online, print out and take to their local police station. -- The U.S. Office of Personnel Management should speed up its review of the use of Social Security numbers by federal agencies. -- U.S. agencies should work with experts to find other ways of authenticating people's identities, such as biometrics. -- U.S. agencies should develop better plans to disclose data breaches to potential victims. In May, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) had a laptop and hard drive stolen from an analyst's home, and the agency took about two weeks to report the theft to the public. Majoras and Gonzales didn't talk about the VA case, but members of Congress have called for the VA to do a better job of notifying potential victims.
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Credit card issuer warns of weak spending and increasing delinquencies.
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Proposed law suggests fines, jail sentences for guilty parties.
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Business & money: New rules could make it easier to open stores, while a permanent ombudsman is mooted to monitor market.
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As more details emerge about the recently disclosed security breach at TJX Companies, lawmakers in Massachusetts are considering new laws that would put the onus for paying for such breaches on retailers and merchants, rather than banks and credit unions, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
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With a weak back-to-school season behind them, the nation's retailers are focused on the holidays and what steps they need to take to get consumers excited about shopping again. That could mean some quick merchandise changes and more aggressive discounting than they originally planned.
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Things just aren&#39;t going well for Timothy Scott Short. Just days after a pair of tech support calls he made to printer manufacturer Digimarc&#160;resulted in his arrest, he now finds himself on the receiving end of a data breach with his Social Security number and birthdate accidentally made public via the federal court&#39;s Electronic Case Files (ECF) system.It&#39;s an ironic development, because Short, 33, was arrested in connection with the Oct. 5 theft of a Missouri Department of Revenue printer and a PC containing data on as many as 500 state residents.Short&#39;s personal information was discovered by the IDG News Service, listed on a court document called a Criminal Case Cover Sheet, which was publicly available to users of the ECF system. Normally, this document should only be accessible to those involved in the case, but it appears to have been inadvertently made public, according to a clerk with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, who asked not to be identified because she was not authorized to speak with the press. &quot;It&#39;s something on our side,&quot; she said, adding that technical staff is now looking into the problem.The U.S. Judicial Conference, which sets policy for U.S. courts, has said that this kind of information should be removed from publicly available electronic court records, but actually removing all the sensitive information has proved difficult.&quot;If you went online to various court systems, you could find social security numbers of many individuals,&quot; said Paul Stephens, director of policy and advocacy with the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. &quot;It&#39;s a really, really difficult question to answer, just because you&#39;re dealing with so many jurisdictions.&quot;Social Security numbers are the building blocks of identity theft crime because they can be used to secure credit cards. &quot;Any time you are placing Social Security numbers online, your are subjecting that person to identity theft,&quot; Stephens said.With the push to make public documents available online, other government databases have had similar problems. Earlier this year, the states of California and Colorado were forced to take their Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) databases offline after privacy advocates pointed out that the Social Security numbers and other data they contained could be misused by identity thieves.Short, however, may have bigger problems to worry about. He&#39;s facing $250,000 in fines and 10 years in prison on charges of possession of &quot;document-making implements&quot; in connection with the theft. He was arrested after U.S. Secret Service Special Agent John Bush recognized his voice in calls placed to a tech support line of the company that makes the stolen printer.&#160;