$10,000 Stolen From Avon Lake Resident In Fraud Scheme

AVON LAKE, OH — A 60-year-old Avon Lake woman had $10,000 stolen from her over the span of about three weeks, according to police reports obtained by Patch. The woman appears to have been the victim of an identity fraud scheme.

Between Nov. 13 and Dec. 4, the money was transferred out of the woman's checking account via a PayPal transfer. Police say the case is currently closed because of a lack of evidence.

This instance of fraud is one in a long series of growing cyber crimes that are hitting Americans. The Insurance Information Institute (III) estimates that 15.4 million Americans were victims of some kind of cyber fraud in 2016, up from 13.1 million victims in 2015.

More than $16 billion was stolen from Americans via these frauds in 2016. Over the past six years, more than $107 billion has been stolen by identity thieves, the III says. About 11 percent of all identity thefts are related to some kind of bank fraud.

The U.S. government has released a series of tips to help protect Americans from these thieves. Those tips include:

• Securing your social security number. Don't carry the social security card in your wallet and be reticent to give the number out to anyone.
• Don't respond to unsolicited requests. That means robocallers, emailed solicitations and others.
• Always collect your mail quickly.
• Pay attention to billing cycles.
• Keep your firewalls updated on your computer.
• Keep security features updated on your cell phone or other mobile devices.
• Store your personal information securely at home or at work.
• Use complex passwords only. Do not reuse the same password for all of your various accounts. Change your password if a company you've done business with has a data breach.

The complete list of tips and other information on identity theft can be found by clicking here.

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