This page/content is part of the IPR News Web Archive.

It is no longer maintained and may not meet accessibility standards. To request content in an accessible format, contact us.

Ball State employees report tax fraud after Anthem data breach

By Stephanie Wiechmann | Published on in Ball State, Crime, Local News, Technology

It’s been a month since the personal information of 80 million Anthem insurance customers was compromised in a data breach. Since then, people have been watching their credit information. But it’s also tax season and IPR’s Stephanie Wiechmann reports that employees at a local university insured by Anthem say they’re rushing to file taxes before thieves file in their names.

    •

    Audio Transcript

    “Filed my taxes. And I would say within about 40 minutes of filing, I got an email that said your taxes have been rejected because the taxpayer identification number has already been used.”

    Jennifer Palilonis has been using the same tax preparation software for years and says she’s never had a problem with filing until this year.

    Her tax calculations say she owes money to the federal government.  But, whoever filed fraudulent taxes in her name decided to try for a large refund instead.

    “The income information is incorrect, but even more alarming, the deductions are all incorrect. So what they’re doing is they’re filing fraudulent deductions, for example. My tax transcript for 2014 showed right around $ 17,000 in fraudulent medical expenses.”

    Palilonis works in the Journalism department at Ball State University.  Ball State’s insurance provider is Anthem.

    School officials like Information Technology associate vice president Loren Malm say data from about 2,700 Ball State employees was included in the Anthem data breach.

    “We do know that the breach involved Ball State University information, and Anthem has confirmed that to us.”

    But Malm says making a direct link between the Anthem hack and tax fraud is hard to prove.

    “We don’t really have any indication at this point that would confirm that the Anthem breach was related to the to the tax fraud that we’re seeing. So there’s no confirmation that those two things are linked.”

    In fact, the Internal Revenue Service says identity theft tax fraud is the most common tax scam it deals with each year.  Last fiscal year, the agency says it investigated more than 1,000 cases.

    Malm says employees don’t have to report to Ball State if they’ve been a victim of tax fraud or if someone has illegally used their credit.

    “I can tell you that we did set up a service where employees can call us and tell us if they have received one of the letters from the state of Indiana. We have only received two of those so far.”

    Palilonis, though, says she knows many more than two Ball State employees affected.

    “Of the many people that I know that this has happened to, I think a lot of people are sort of reticent about talking about it publicly. You know, you feel really vulnerable and suddenly you realize that your identity has been stolen and, and people have your Social Security numbers.”

    But she agrees that it’s an almost impossible task to accurately prove thieves are using data stolen specifically from Anthem.

    “I mean, Ball State’s right. They can’t prove that. If there’s any connection, I can’t prove that there’s any connection. The investigators can’t prove. The IRS can’t prove that there’s any connection. I think it’s strange that so many Ball State faculty members within literally a three week period, have had this happen to them.”

    For Palilonis, her first call was to the IRS.

    “This was an incredibly frustrating process from beginning to end. It was about 2.5 hours of being on the phone, trying to locate someone at the IRS that could talk to me.”

    After an agent confirmed the tax documents submitted were fraudulent, he told her what paperwork to file and how the process would work.  He also said the fake refund wouldn’t be paid out.

    Palilonis says she immediately felt better about the situation.  But days later, she found  a pre-paid debit card with the refund in her mailbox.

    “I knew exactly what it was. So again, I sort of went into panic mode. I’m like freaking out, saying to the woman on the phone, this is not my money. This money belongs to the IRS. I did not open this account. Please stop this account.”

    Many phone calls later, and documents filed, and even reports filed with local police agencies in person, Palilonis says the IRS estimates it will take months for her situation to be fully resolved.

    She has since frozen her and her husband’s credit and signed up for credit monitoring paid for by Anthem.

    Those last steps are something that may soon become normal for everyone in a world of increasing cyber attacks, says Ball State human resources associate vice president Marie Williams.

    “With the resources available, there’s lots of things that we can always be doing. These are good things to do anyway. So if anything, it’s helped us to a heightened our awareness about things that we need to do to protect ourselves from such crimes.”

     

    NOW PLAYING

    Indiana Public Radio

    Live on 92.1 FM Muncie | 90.9 FM Marion | 91.1 FM Hagerstown / New Castle

    From IPR