Anthem Was Hacked

[RayNY]

It was probably just a mailing list company adding some new folks to their data base.

Over 50% of those identities aren't worth stealing anyway....

100% of identities are worth stealing. Anyone that could afford health insurance can get a credit card (or ten) with a few thousand dollar limit. This is America after all!

Don't forget, many of these people are due a tax return right about now. With the first year of APTC's, I'd wager that the checks and balances for determining subsidy and issuing the adjustment in a timely basis isn't 100%. Totally possible to just falsify returns with an attempt to get the biggest return+APTC, cash the check, and leave the govt hanging.

What's the worse that happens? You don't get free money? You get less free money than you tried to get?

 

[russelltw]

Great point Ray. If ID thieves get this info and submit thousands of tax returns with incomes right over the 100% of the FPL based on family size...could be a lot of our tax dollars being sucked away. That's a lot of subsidy someone was supposed to get back...

 

[AllenChicago]

Don't forget, many of these people are due a tax return right about now. With the first year of APTC's, I'd wager that the checks and balances for determining subsidy and issuing the adjustment in a timely basis isn't 100%. Totally possible to just falsify returns with an attempt to get the biggest return+APTC, cash the check, and leave the govt hanging.

Ray, your statements back up what a lot of cybercrime experts are thinking... That the Anthem ID theft wasn't some randomly-timed attack. It was done right after all 1095-A's had been completed. Hackers file false returns with correct 1095A info, but really low incomes, and...Jackpot!

 

[Yagents]

Carriers don't have access to 1095's.........you are the king of conspiracy fiction

 

[RayNY]

Carriers don't have access to 1095's.........you are the king of conspiracy fiction

Anthem never said that policy info wasn't taken, just that medical records and credit card info wasn't taken. If you know the policy and premium, it's not hard to work backwards and fill a 1095a out.

Even without that, it's not hard to call in with a correct name, address, and SSN and request they re-send it to a new e-mail. Heck, we do it all the time for a whole lot less money than a scammer stands to make ($4000-$10,000+ on subsidy fraud alone, not counting a tax return).

If you ask me, anyone smart enough to get the info, is smart enough to write a program to use the data to recover passwords, get into accounts, and fill out the IRS forms in mass. Probably one of the reasons TurboTax suspended filings-can do it all electronically through their program.

 

[AllenChicago]

Carriers don't have access to 1095's.........you are the king of conspiracy fiction

Professional crooks accumulate data from various sources and merge it, to form a complete profile for committing the crime. I accidently came across 27,500 non-encrypted IRS returns at a government website recently. Imagine what can be found by someone actually looking for this stuff.

Budget Cuts and the ACA brings open-season for defrauding the IRS. $5 Billion in just one year.
Ref: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-rising-tide-of-tax-filing-fraud/

 

[somarco]

They can sell the names, DOB, SSN and health insurance card number for $10 each and do that over and over for quite some time before anyone suspects their identity is used for fraudulent claims.

These crooks don't need to file fraudulent tax forms and risk getting the IRS involved. Medical identity theft is much easier to commit, less chance of getting caught and a lot more lucrative.

The fact that they have FEHB member information makes it even more lucrative.

 

[jamesflou]

The letter I got from Anthem said that ss numbers, addresses and financial information was breached. Hell that's all they need to open up credit in your name. It could take some work to get it all straightened out. So what must a person do other than freeze their credit and pray? Monitoring your credit and financial accounts has become and everyday thing.

 

[RayNY]

The letter I got from Anthem said that ss numbers, addresses and financial information was breached.

Would it be too much to ask for you to upload a scan so we can see what it says? Feel free to redact personal information, of course. Heck, even typing the portion verbatim would help.

Their official response (http://www.anthemfacts.com/) has been that financial information (bank accounts, credit card info) was not breached, only the things you mention and "income data"-how much they make and who pays them. If their letters now say financial data was breached, it would be good to know.

 

[GreenSky]

This is exactly why we need the exchange. The security there is much better.

Rick