ID Theft -- Courtesy of the FAA

I've just received a "past due" invoice for the purchase of 250
gallons of Jet A from an FBO a thousand miles away on 20 May. The
invoice includes my name and address and the N-number of my airplane.
The trouble is: I'm not a jet pilot; haven't been to that city in
thirty years; the airplane with that N-number is still a-building in
my garage and it won't burn kerosene when it flies, anyway.

There's only one way my name, address and reserved N-number could have
been obtained by whoever used them: he got them from the FAA website
by doing a search of the reserved N-number database. To my horror, I
found that information in less than a minute after going to the site.
The database of active N-numbers is equally easy to search.

If this guy is smart he got the names/addresses/tail-numbers for a
dozen or more people, got a dozen or more bogus credit cards and is
using each one just once at self-service pumps to avoid creating a
paper-trail that can be followed. His use of jet fuel is one thing
that will save me from having to pay for his travels. If he'd bought
100LL I might very well have been stuck for the tab; the FBO might
have argued that I'd used the not-yet-airborne tail-number to bolster
a fraudulent claim of identity theft after actually fueling a flyable
aircraft.

Leave it to the braintrust at the FAA to provide such great service to
ID thieves. Better yet, DON"T leave it to them. Write to the FAA
right now and tell them specifically that you want your address
removed from *all* their public-access databases:

Department of Transportation
Federal Aviation Administration
Airmen Certification Branch, AFS-760
P.O. Box 25082
Oklahoma City OK 73125-0082

And if something like this happens to you:

- Notify one of the three credit-reporting services (they'll notify
the other two and all three will place an initial fraud alert on your
dossier, requiring creditors to contact you before extending credit in
your name for the next 90 days)

- Notify your local police (procedures vary among jurisdictions, but
if you get the runaround contact your state police)

- File an identity theft report with the Federal Trade Commission
via their website (you'll need to do the steps above first)

- Use the FTC report and the police report to get a seven-year fraud
alert attached to your files at the three credit-reporting companies.

In addition to writing to the FAA I've done the first step above (as
well as contacting that FBO; ATC records of arrivals and departures of
jets and turboprops can be checked against the time of the transaction
to narrow the list of suspect aircraft -- then the FBI may be brought
in). Monday I'll do the other steps. What the hell, I've got nothing
better to do. I mean, it's not as if the FAA can be expected to do
anything as trivial as safeguarding anybody's personal data; we'll
have to cough up a special user-fee for that ...