Keeping Your Tax Identity Safe
With all the focus on the holidays and the excitement at this time of year, the last thing most people are thinking about is their tax returns. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what tax refund thieves are...
View ArticleIndiana’s Identity Protection Program – the Secret for Success
As the 2016 individual tax season begins, we must be ever vigilant in protecting that most sensitive of information – taxpayers’ PII. As a 2014 Pew Research Center study clearly demonstrates, Americans...
View ArticleHow a Tax Identity Fraud Scam Impacted Our Members
Early in 2014, the Maine Medical Association (MMA) began receiving reports from member physicians that they had been victims of identity theft leading to a tax refund fraud scam. They learned about the...
View ArticleGetting Taxpayers the Money they are Owed, Quickly without Identity Fraud
The Kentucky Department of Revenue’s (DOR) job is not just to collect taxes, but to get taxpayers the money they are owed as quickly as possible. We are trusted stewards of taxpayer dollars, and we...
View ArticleJanitor with a Dirty Record
Workers’ compensation insurance helps workers pay medical and living expenses in the event they become injured on the job and can no longer work. (It’s important to note that the injury must be...
View ArticleFrom Russia with Fraud
A guilty plea is supposed to mean taking responsibility for committing a crime. Yet the Sun-Sentinel reports that a Florida woman was still grappling with her own culpability at her sentencing hearing....
View ArticleEngineering Illegal Benefits
In general, engineers develop solutions for technical problems. Their job is to make things better, not cause more problems. The New Hampshire Union Leader tells the story of a man who tried to...
View ArticleGrocer Goes for the Green
Many small business owners who operate retail stores struggle to compete with large national chains. However, few try to get a leg up on their competition by committing fraud. The Herald nonetheless...
View ArticleFalsifying Family Ties
One questionable parenting technique? Exploiting your kids for government services, as did one Michigan mom, who falsely claimed to the state’s Department of Social Services that she had her two...
View ArticleAmerican Dollars or Canadian Bacon?
It seems that a group of Canadians, who conspired with a California convict to cheat the United States government out of nearly $10 million dollars in federal income tax refunds, aren’t going to be...
View ArticleThe Fraud Freeway to Prison
Truck drivers are more likely to experience nonfatal and fatal injuries on the job than any other American worker. Sadly, domestic truckers account for twelve percent of national labor fatalities,...
View ArticleDoctor Takes His Cut
Medicare can cover in-home health care services when patients are confined to their homes due to illness or injury. The goal is to provide medical care that is just as effective but more convenient and...
View ArticleSemi-Retired, Fully Criminal
Many retirees are making their way back into the office because they want to work, boost their retirement incomes, or balance the fulfillment of holding a part-time job with the flexibility of...
View ArticlePractical Nurse, Impractical Fraud
A recent pair of reports by the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle detail a licensed practical nurse in upstate New York who exploited a special needs patient to cheat the state Medicaid program of...
View ArticleMedical Maniacs
A Southern California medical practice’s conspiracy to defraud Medicare and Medi-Cal, by billing the health benefits programs for false anti-psychotics prescriptions multiple times, has history-making...
View ArticleFraud as a Side Job
The Northwest Indiana Times tells the story of a working woman in Gary, Indiana, whose theft of nearly $15,000 in unemployment benefits was uncovered by a diligent employee at the Indiana Department of...
View ArticleBeware of the Heedless Horoscope
The Battle Creek Enquirer has the otherworldly story of a superstitious Michigan CEO, who is now serving prison time for using half a million dollars in company money to finance a phony psychic. A...
View ArticleSocial Sinners
Some people engage in religious activities to absolve their sins and cultivate spiritual connections with higher powers. And then there are those who see organized religion as an opportunity to...
View ArticleMarried with Restitution
Many Americans live by the mantra that when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. That sort of opportunistic impulse invigorates many people with a strong sense of entrepreneurship, including...
View ArticleLyin’ Hard for the Money
The Associated Press recently caught wind of a man and a woman in South Carolina who were discovered collecting unemployment benefits, despite their gainful employment. According to the report and a...
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