COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) -
Your private information, from credit cards to your social security number is valuable to thieves. There's a black market for your information and often time, it's you left holding the bill.
As a result of the breach at the state Revenue Department, more than 500 people called the Consumer Affairs Department on Monday now trying to protect that information. Typically they get 1,700 calls a month. It may not be to late to secure your information.
The office can't finish one call before getting another from those wanting fraud alerts and freezes on their credit information.
In the world of hackers, there's a black market for the information and criminals are willing to pay.
"Identity thieves would not be stealing the information if they couldn't make a profit off of selling it," said Carri
Grube-Lybarker with the Consumer Affairs Department.
Here's what we found on the black market. Between $2 and $90 will get a thief credit card details, your name, mailing address, and Social Security number. The more information the higher the price.They'll pay $200 to a $1,000 to clone your credit card, complete with magnetic stripes and embossed numbers. They'll pay up to $3,500 for your bank credentials, if you've got the account names and passwords. All they need is the big three.
"The Social Security number, the date of birth, and the full name, that's information if you have, you can get like I say, loans, credit cards, things like that is somebody else's name," said Rick Stephens, investigator with the state Electronic Crimes Task Force.
What they really want is your child's Social Security number, because those numbers aren't typically checked for fraud.
"Whether it's getting a job, or medical benefits, or any of those items, somebody's interested," said Grube-Lybarker.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, South Carolina is above the national average when it comes to a child's identity being stolen.
"You can check to see if your child has a credit report and you do you go through the process of making the credit reporting agency aware of the child's age and dispute anything on the credit report that should not be there," said Grube-Lybarker.
According to the FBI, thieves duplicating credit card information, they don't sell your information one place, they'll make up a hundred of those duplicate credit cards and sell them all.
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