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An Internet business that bragged about the "high quality" of the templates it sold to help produce false identity documents has been ordered to halt the sales by a U. S. District Court at the request of the Federal Trade Commission. "False identification templates
are used to facilitate fraudulent activity, including identity theft and underage drinking," an FTC complaint filed in U.S. District Court says. "There is no legitimate use for Defendant's
templates and programs." The court granted the FTC request for a temporary restraining order to prevent the illegal sale of the fake ID templates, pending trial. The agency will seek a permanent bar on the illegal activity and recovery of the defendant's illegally-earned income.
"The templates and software sold on this site are there to help people
break the law," said Jodie Bernstein, Director of the FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection. "They could be used to facilitate underage drinking, illegal driving, passport fraud, voting fraud, and even identity theft. This is a no-brainer: any business that empowers and encourages people to break the law should and will be shut down." According to the FTC, identity thieves often
download fake ID templates and steal someone's identity. They buy goods they have no intention of paying for, run up mountains of debt and destroy the innocent person's credit record. The FTC maintains the nation's central repository of identity theft complaints, and provides a toll-free hotline for victims. The FTC complaint alleges that Jeremy Martinez of Tarzana, California, doing business as Info World, maintained Web sites, including one located at a site called "new id" that sold 45 days of access to fake ID templates for $29.99. The site contained "high quality" templates for the creation of fake
Alabama, Alaska Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia,
Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine,
Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin,
Wyoming drivers licenses. It also contained a birth certificate template, programs to generate bar codes - required in some states to authenticate drivers licenses - and a program
to falsify Social Security numbers. The FTC alleges that Martinez was deliberately marketing his site to
consumers who were surfing the net to find fake ID documents. Web sites use Meta-tags - hidden words that
help search engines identify and index Web site content. Martinez's Meta-tags included "illegal id," "fake id fraud,"
and "forging documents" according to the FTC complaint. The agency alleges that selling the fake ID templates violates
the FTC Act and that by providing false identification templates to others, Martinez has provided the "means and
instrumentalities" for others to break the law. It has asked the court to permanently bar the deceptive practices
and to recover the illegally earned money from the defendant. The Commission vote to file the complaint was 5-0 with
Commissioner Orson Swindle concurring in part and dissenting in part. In his statement, Commissioner Swindle said,
"I support the unfairness allegation as it relates to underage drinking in Count I of the complaint and the means
and instrumentalities deception allegation in Count II. I have strong reservations about Count
It's allegation
of unfairness in relation to identity theft, however. I believe that the strongest legal basis for reaching this
type of activity is the allegation in Count II that the defendant, by providing templates to create false
identification documents, provided the means and instrumentalities for the commission of the deceptive act
of identity theft. It is therefore not necessary or appropriate to plead in Count I a weaker, more attenuated
unfairness theory relating to identity theft." The complaint was filed in U. S. District Court for the
Central District of California in Los Angeles on December 5, under seal. The seal was lifted December 8.
This case was filed with the invaluable assistance of the Florida Department of Business and Professional
Regulation Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco Fraudulent Identification Program. The program identifies
fraudulent Internet identification issues and has closed 33 Internet sites and recorded 310 arrests for possession
of false identification. The Commission files a complaint when it has "reason to believe" that the law has been or
is being violated, and it appears to the Commission that a proceeding is in the public interest. The complaint is not a
finding or ruling that the defendant has actually violated the law. The case will be decided by the court. The FTC has
published a free 21-page booklet, Identity Theft: When Bad Things Happen to Your Good Name. This comprehensive guide
includes information on what consumers can do to reduce their risk of ID theft; how consumers can protect their personal
information; the steps consumers can take if they do become victims of ID theft; and a directory of government resources
available to ID theft victims. The FTC works for the consumer to prevent fraudulent, deceptive and unfair business
practices in the marketplace and to provide information to help consumers spot, stop and avoid them.
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