Allen resident Ping Du says he was in Mexico in late December when his family vacation was ruined by an alert from his bank that his personal information on record had been updated without his knowledge.
A bank representative told Du that someone had walked into a bank branch in New York and provided a physical driver’s license under his name. Fortunately, Du said, he was able to put a freeze on his bank account before the fraudster tried to withdraw money the following day.
But that wasn’t the last time that Du was put on notice about potential fraud related to his identity — a different bank notified him that credit cards were being sent out to an address he didn’t know, and a mobile phone service provider told him about a new account that he did not make.
“I have to be on constant alert,” Du said. “I literally have to get up at night just to make sure that I don’t have any alerts coming in. Then you have to worry about if they got into my other accounts.”
On Monday, The Texas Department of Public Safety announced that “a Chinese organized crime group based in New York” had used data culled from the dark web to order thousands of driver’s licenses in Texans’ names. The scam specifically targeted Texans of Asian descent, according to state officials, who publicly revealed the breach Monday. An investigation is ongoing.
Texas DPS Chief Steve McCraw has said that authorities first identified the problem late last year but that they did not notify affected Texans because of the criminal investigation.
After months of stressing over how his information had been compromised, Du said news of the scam made him suspect that he could be a victim.
Du, who is of Chinese descent, said he reached out to DPS and tried to find out if they could confirm whether he was affected by the scam and tried to provide them the New York address associated with one of the fraudulent attempts to use his identity. A representative from the agency referred him to his local law enforcement and the state’s iWatch tip line, Du said.
“To be honest, I couldn’t tell you whether I am truly one of the people that had their information stolen,” he said. “If it is related to this particular incident, then I feel like they have an obligation to at least notify the people whose data has been breached, just like any other private organization.”
Lawmakers and organizations with ties to the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities in Texas also reacted to news of the scam and expressed their frustration over how communication about the incident was handled.
In a written statement Monday, Lily Trieu, executive director of Austin-based Asian Texans for Justice said the lack of communication about the scam is “another example of the state’s gross negligence, which continues to erode the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community’s trust in government,” and added that she thinks Gov. Greg Abbott should ensure new protocols to avoid future “communication failures.”
She said it’s also important for state officials to consider language access when communicating important information to constituents.
“According to AAPI Data, more than one-third of AAPIs in Texas are limited English proficient — the state needs to provide timely, in-language information regarding this incident,” Trieu wrote. “In addition to notifications to each victim, the state should provide credit monitoring tools to protect their identities from being misused.”
Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, said he is “deeply disappointed” with the situation, and said DPS should make themselves available to offer resources to victims.
“If this happened under a private company and it was their mishap that caused this, they would be liable for it,” Wu added. “They need to own up to this and start helping people fix the problems.”
Hailong Jin, board member of the DFW Chinese Alliance, said he, along with many in the Chinese American community in North Texas learned about the scam through news reports and said state officials should have notified potential victims earlier. He also stressed the importance of language-appropriate material for victims who are not English-proficient.
“They should have immediately notified any victims, because even within a few days they could have caused further damage,” Jin said.
Du still doesn’t know if his case is related to the scam that Texas DPS announced Monday and has yet to hear back from authorities, which he said adds to his frustration. He said he hopes state law enforcement officials will act urgently to identify and arrest those who were responsible so no one else has to share his experience.
“If I knew this back in December when it first happened, I would be even more diligent and I would have shut down more of my accounts, and honestly that’s what I did in the last week. I still don’t know what was going on and I was scared that they would get their hands on more of my information.”
Austin bureau reporters Lauren McGaughy and Allie Morris contributed to this report.
