Yes - “identity theft” in common usage has been a phenomenally successful effort by financial companies to shift the cost of their negligence to the consumer.
Yes even the name itself implies the burden should be bourne by the individual. It's a fantastically successful disinformation campaign. We should refuse to call it "identity theft" and call it "identity fraud" instead.
This is the correct terminology. If someone opens an account with a bank using false credentials that’s just fraud. And the victim here is the bank, not the individual.
> Libel is a method of defamation expressed by print, writing ... that is injurious to a person's reputation, ... or injures a person in his/her business or profession.
Note, the person who "had their identity stolen" (that phrasing is an absurdity, twisted language designed to obscure and defraud the truth) was never a party to the deal. The only parties relevant here are the bank and the person that defrauded the bank. The only victim is the bank. Nobody here is arguing that this problem doesn't exist for real people, we're saying that it's insane that it even exists at all.
> ... no consumer may bring any action or proceeding in the nature of defamation, ... or negligence with respect to the reporting of information against any ... person who furnishes information to a consumer reporting agency ... except as to false information furnished with malice or willful intent to injure such consumer.
In order for it to be a willful intent to injure, they have to believe it's not you and report that is is in order to knowingly tarnish your reputation. Generally if they publish bad data about you it's because the data they have is bad. It's not because out of all the accounts at JP Morgan Chase or Wells Fargo or wherever some faceless drone decided your faceless account needs to be specifically and maliciously lied about.
Opening an account or the existence of one isn't "negative information."
Sure, but I meant if they're reporting you to a credit agency for owing money or whatever. That is them publishing false information about you that will have negative consequences for you.
It's false information though, if the person hasn't opened an account. It might or might not be negative based on what the recipient of that information deduces, but it's definitely false.
The problem would be intent: my understanding is that in the U.S. at least you would have to show that they knew it was false when they published it or refused to correct it. If they simply say “technical error, we fixed it” I think your odds of reaching that bar would be quite daunting.
My identity was stolen after the equifax breach. The only cost to me was the gas it took to drive to the police station. Verizon and AT&T had automated systems where I input some information and the key part was having a police report number from the local PD. Once I had the police report everything was removed including the credit reporting. I had to call enterprise rent a car to get some stuff cleared but they even removed an overdue parking ticket from Santa Clara (never been to California).
Nordstrom was the only proactive party they called me immediately when they noticed someone filing out a credit card application in another state.
My (limited) understanding is that this is the financial companies problem in every case except for when your payment information is stolen. In which case it becomes a hot potato of whoever is out the money is the one who is liable.
If a bank extends credit to someone without doing their due diligence, they’ve definitely been defrauded but that’s between them and the crook, not the person the crook was claiming to be.
