Ball State employees that have been victims of tax fraud and identity theft now face concerns over the safety of their identities moving forward.
Eighty employees of the university have been victims of tax fraud as of March 16, said Joan Todd, interim associate vice president of university marketing and communications.
Todd told The Daily News last week that some employees might not even be aware yet since the tax filling deadline is not until April 15.
In the latest round of Federal Trade Commission data on the 2.58 million complaints to the agency, fraud was the most common at 60 percent. Fraud was followed by identity theft complaints at 13 percent.
Identity theft has held the No. 1 spot on the FTC’s national ranking of consumer complaints for 15 years in a row, according to the FTC’s 2014 Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book
For more information on how to handle tax fraud and identity theft go to bsu.edu/idtheft.
Abel Alves, professor of history; Cathy Day, assistant chair of operation for the Ball State English Department; and Cindi Marini, assistant director of academic advising all were victims of identity theft this year. Mellisa Holtzman, associate professor of sociology, had her identity stolen last year. All of them will have to watch their financial accounts and records for the rest of their lives.
Abel Alves, professor of history
"I’ll be working on it my whole life now. It’s resolved for now. However, at this point [you] really have to keep checking your credit, make sure that nothing is untoward in terms of expenditures being charged to you, [accounts being] opened in my name. But, down the line for example, eventually I will retire and when that happens you have to worry about protecting your retirement funds. As you’re withdrawing, will someone else try to withdraw, using falsified information that may still be out there? The unfortunate thing is once this has happens to you, you have to think about it the rest of your life. But it’s not as though I’m currently spending every waking moment working on it, no, I’m back to my writing and my research... But, in terms of feeling unsafe, I don’t per se feel unsafe except that I think the reason most of us don’t think about this, is of course it’s not a direct attack on your person."
Mellisa Holtzman, associate professor of sociology
"Mostly it’s been a nuisance, more than anything. We learned this happened to us last year, but the tax fraud we experienced was not a direct result of the Anthem breach, because this happened last year. We submitted our taxes and our tax guy called us and said, ‘Well, I’ve got bad news, somebody has already submitted your tax return in your husband’s name using his social security number’ and I was like ‘Seriously, that’s possible?’"
Cathy Day, assistant chair of operation for the Ball State English Department
"[My husband is] the one who’s really been taking care of most of it... I’m very fortunate that my husband … deals a lot with bureaucracy and forms and so I’m very fortunate that I haven’t had to stop what I’m doing to take of all of this stuff, like I know many of my colleagues had to do.
It’s been hard to wrap my head around the fact that this is something that will be a problem for the rest of my life. This is something that will never go away and that’s very hard to deal with."
Cindi Marini, assistant director of academic advising
"It’s troubling. I’m not super stressed out about it, but it is troubling. You feel like, now what? What’s going to happen next year when it’s time to submit taxes. Is there another shoe that’s going to drop? You do feel some vulnerability. You don’t know exactly what’s out there or who has it. Have we done enough to stop this and not have any further negative consequences? I hope so. I guess time will tell, I’m concerned but I’m not a person that’s super stressed out over this, worrying every day about, "are we going to have problems?'"
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