SmallBizResource Blog -- Women in Business

Wednesday's Woman: Identity Theft Assistance Center's Anne Wallace

Posted by Gayle Kesten Wednesday, Dec 3, 2008, 12:54 PM ET

Imagine applying for credit and being told the only piece missing from your paperwork is a man's signature. Fortunately, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, enacted in 1974, changed that -- but not without the help of Anne Wallace, who today has turned her attention to helping identity-theft victims get back on their feet.

After graduating from Boston University Law School in 1973, Wallace went to work for the Federal Reserve Board, where she wrote regulations for the ECOA. "It was groundbreaking," she told me. "I don't think women today have any sense of what it was like for a woman, whether you were single or divorced or married, to get credit in the '60s and early '70s. For a woman business owner, it was just very difficult. Many of them had to involve their husbands or fathers in their business, even only in name."

Wallace also worked on implementing other new laws during her six years at the Federal Reserve Board, including those governing electronics funds transfer. From there she spent many years working for private law firms, financial services companies, and as a consultant. In the past decade she assisted corporate clients in devising policies in the areas of privacy and data protection. In the early 2000s, when the idea for an assistance service for victims of identity theft came up, a lightbulb went off over Wallace's head. Envisioning a call center, Wallace developed a plan that paved the way for the Identity Theft Assistance Center (ITAC), a nonprofit trade association of financial services companies that, to date, has helped more than 45,000 people recover from identity theft. Wallace is its executive director.

Wallace shares with SBR readers the reaction she received during the ECOA's early days, the biggest misconception about identity theft, and how small businesses can better protect themselves.

SBR: What was it like telling bankers about the Equal Credit Opportunity Act?
AW: I spoke before a lot of skeptical audiences -- horrified, horrified audiences! I was frequently the only professional woman in the room. Looking back on it, the world around us was changing. Yes, it's true the law was groundbreaking, but society was changing all around us. Women were moving into businesses. They they were getting more college degrees and professional degrees. Assumptions about families were changing.

SBR: I read an article about you on The Glass Hammer that said you were among the first group of women to graduate from Fordham and Boston University. Where did your confidence come from?
AW: My father was very supportive of my going to law school. He never blinked. My mom, less so. I remember going on job interviews and being asked these incredible questions about when I was going to get married, when I was going to have children. People said point blank to me that women don't belong doing X-type of law; for example, tax law. I keep reminding my two daughters, who are in their 20s, that [this didn't happen] so long ago. You have to be conscious of that.

SBR: How did you balance work and family?
AW: I never felt like I could do anything else. I couldn't stop. I couldn't go backward. I love the business world, products, and new ideas. I think it's because I grew up in New York City -- the center of the retail and advertising world.

SBR: How do you define identify theft?
AW: Law enforcement and the financial services industry see it more as when a new account it opened in your name, or someone uses your name and tells the police they're you in the middle of the crime. Credit-card fraud is the vast bulk. Numbers can be bought and sold on the Internet.

SBR: How big a problem is identity theft for small businesses?
AW: It's a significant risk. Really, a small business isn't different from an individual. We know that an individual can experience identity theft in a variety of ways -- anything from an employee stealing customer or patient information or taking advantage of a co-worker. Maybe they have access to personnel records. All of those things can and do happen. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been lost.

SBR: What is the biggest misconception about identity theft?
AW: That it's an online phenomenon. People tend to be focused on new technology as being riskier, in part because it's not as familiar, but when you think about it, the risks in the brick-and-mortar world are just as serious. We tend to let our guard down, tend not to think a co-worker, officemate, or receptionist who has access to our information is misusing it.

It's the social engineering issue. Your kids ask you things when you think they'll get a better reception. Criminals do that, too. The saddest cases we deal with are situations where a victim has trusted someone, such as a family member or caregiver. In the business world, we carry our human nature with us. We want to trust. It's a basic human need. It's the holiday season, but you have to listen to your inner Scrooge. Stop and think.

SBR: What mistakes do you see being repeated?
AW: Carelessness about information and records. If you're a small business, you have to think about how that information is being protected.

SBR: How can small businesses better protect themselves?
AW: The same ways we tell individuals. Think twice before giving out your information. Why are they asking and what are they going to do with it? Always check your statements, and check them online. It's faster, and the faster you find an issue, the faster it can be fixed. Check your credit report, too. Many small business owners use their personal credit cards, so go to AnnualCreditReport.com. It's free.

ITAC also sells an identity protection service that watches your back called ITAC Sentinel, which involves credit monitoring and notifies you if there's a problem. ITAC Security comprises three tiers of service [ranging in price from $9.99 per month to $17.99 per month]. It's the only service on the market that if you do become a victim, you get to use our system for free. You get protection on the front end and help recovering.

SBR: How are you marketing your service?
AW: We have a lot of e-mail. Our publicist uses various distribution services. You can sign up for newsletters from ITAC. We push out information to member companies.

SBR: What's next for ITAC?
AW: Now that we have this operation, we also have data. Our next step is to put our data to work to help people and prevent fraud. We plan to do more research and extend our reach. We all get set in our ways. We think, "These are my customers. These are my numbers," but there's always another way to take what you're doing, repackage it, and deliver value to someone else. I'm always looking for connections, for ways to take what I'm doing in one area and apply it somewhere else.

SBR: Are you a fan of new technology?
AW: There's a real tension between convenience and new tools. They have their costs. I really try hard to stay up to date, but I think everybody finds it hard. No sooner do you become relatively comfortable with new technology than there's another format. I don't text. I have a Web site for work and recently signed a contract with a Web consulting firm to do pay per click and search engine optimization -- terms I had never heard six months ago. I even started a page on Facebook. I think it's terribly important to understand how these things work and how it can help me in my business and community involvement.

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The Wednesday's Woman series is written for today's community of hard-working, small-business women, featuring profiles, industry trends, research, work/life balance issues and other topics of interest. Send your ideas to Gayle Kesten.

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