Everyone’s been warned about protecting credit card information or Social Security numbers from identity thieves, but experts say they’re now seeing other personal information being targeted by scammers: driver’s license information.
“We’re hearing about this more frequently than we ever have,” said James Lee with the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC).
Lee said past data breaches supplied those scammers with tons of personal information from millions of people. Criminals plant them on the internet, and for a few bucks, anyone with bad intentions can reap the benefits and use the information to create phony licenses.
“You go to a marketplace on the web two years ago, you pay $5 for it. Today, you’ll pay $150 for it,” said Lee.
Virginia State Police Trooper Marcus Johnson didn’t realize he had encountered one of those fakes when he responded to a traffic accident in July.
“Everything was normal,” he said.
Johnson said the driver’s license came back clean and the registration checked out. He wrote a citation for following too closely for the driver of the Audi, Matthew Pantaleno.
According to the police crash report, a black Audi driven by Pantaleno rear-ended a Nissan on Interstate 95 in Stafford County. There was no major vehicle damage or injuries – but that doesn’t mean people weren’t hurt.
Here’s the thing: Pantaleno told News4 he’s never been through Stafford County.
In fact, at the time of the crash, he was at work at News4’s…
