Ooops, Slip-Up Exposes Private Data of 3 Million Texans

Someone messed up in Texas. The Texas Comptroller’s Office last week admitted that the names, addresses, Social Security numbers and driver’s licenses of more than three million Texans were inadvertently stored on a publicly accessible website.

The news was no sooner out than scam artists were on the phone, calling the teachers and state employees whose data had been made public, hoping to get Social Security numbers and other information to round out the data that slipped into public view.

The Texas attorney general says at least one state employee has reported receiving fraudulent telephone calls at home from an individual seeking to confirm the employee’s Social Security numbers. The caller falsely claimed to be with the Employees Retirement System of Texas (ERS).

The Health and Human Services Commission employee stated that an individual called his home, identified himself as “Mike with ERS” and said he wanted to confirm the last four digits of the employee’s Social Security number. When the employee refused to provide information, the caller said, “Good luck to you” and disconnected the call.

Affected state employees and retirees – as well as current and retired teachers or university employees – should be alert that ERS, the Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS) and the Texas Workforce Commission are not making these telephone calls.

State employees and all Texans who receive these kinds of fraudulent phone calls should not provide any information to the caller and should just hang up.

To further guard against identity theft, Texans whose confidential information was compromised should consider taking these steps:

• Request a copy of their credit report and review it for unauthorized account activity.
• Contact a primary credit reporting bureau to have a fraud alert placed on the reports. That credit bureau will notify the other two bureaus.
• Report unauthorized charges and accounts to the appropriate credit issuers and credit bureaus immediately by phone and in writing. Cancel the accounts.
• File a police report with their local law enforcement agency and keep a copy of that report. Many banks and credit agencies require such a report before they will acknowledge that a theft has occurred.
• Visit www.txsafeguard.org or www.texasfightsidtheft.gov.