Mari Frank Interviews Yolanda Hammond Auditor and Victim of ID Theft

As an internal auditor Ms. Hammond is trained to identify or improve controls to prevent fraud within her company. She has been able to use some of her skills and training in her personal life. She has always done a great deal to protect her identity, including shredding everything with her name and address, reviewing her social security statement regularly, reviewing her credit report more than once a year, and opting out of telephone and mail marketing. One afternoon in December 2005, Ms. Hammond was contacted by a credit card company attempting to verify that she had opened an account. She had not opened the account and hadn't authorized anyone else to open an account. She cancelled the credit card and by that evening she discovered there were other fraudulent accounts including a car loan. Ms. Hammond requested a fraud alert be placed on her credit report. From that point on she spent hours disputing fraudulent information, trying to figure out what other fraudulent activities there might be and wondering who got her personal information and how. She now had a second job auditing and analyzing information - almost every day after work she was writing letters, making phone calls, or checking the mail for evidence of other fraudulent activities. Fortunately, her diligent efforts lead to the arrest of the identity thief in early 2006. The thief had outstanding warrants for similar activities and had access to personal information - her information - while employed by Matria. Although the thief is currently in jail you can't help but wonder what happened? How did this person get access to Ms. Hammond's personal information? What could Matria have done to make sure that Ms. Hammond didn't lose control of her life. Hopefully, by sharing her story some companies will make sure they do everything possible to protect customer information and prevent even one person from experiencing the helplessness of identity theft. Ms. Hammond graduated from the University of Tennessee with a B. S. in Accounting. Immediately following graduation she went to work for a federal contractor as an internal auditor. She has worked at the same place for 24 years and has been married for 23 years. Her job involves performing independent and objective evaluations of the adequacy and effectiveness of management control systems and quality of performance. In this role she performs a variety of audits that ultimately help the company do things right and do the right things. In this interview she will enlighten you to find out what she thinks should be done in companies.