Identity theft has been plaguing millions of people all over the world. This is true in spite of all the efforts towards implementing prevention practices and promoting consumer awareness. In fact, just this 2008, roughly 10 million Americans were documented to have been victimized. This goes without saying that the development of anti-identity theft programs would be welcomed by anyone and everyone, especially creditors.
This is not necessarily true though. There are organizations that believe that their members should still be exempted from the implementation and development of identity theft prevention measures. This is quite surprising, but it is already a well-known fact that the AMA or American Medical Association is one of these organizations.
The members of the AMA have put up quite a tough resistance. Resistance has been so tough that implementation of the Red Flag Rules has been delayed three times already. The inception of these rules was way back November 2007 and until now, these have not been implemented. The current deadline for implementation is November 2009.
Apart from AMA, there are also banks and other financial institutions that have made strong objections against the activity of monitoring these 26 red flags, even if they were designed and put up to provide protection from identity theft. Surprisingly, figures here are quite hefty, in spite of the fact that these red flags can greatly assist in making sure that no person’s identity would be used by another person for any purpose.
Why is this so? These organizations have been asked about this and a common reason they provide is that these new rules are just too burdensome on their part. Large corporations, such as huge banks in the industry, would not really have that much trouble complying with these red flags. However, the same thing cannot be said with smaller organizations. These small ones just might have to enlist the services of third party companies just to carry out and implement these red flags. This, obviously, means additional costs for small organizations, which do not really have that much funds to begin with.
One particular reason brought about by the AMA is that physicians should not be categorized as ‘creditors.’ Yes, physicians do grant credit from time to time, especially when they accept credit payments for their fees. However, this is a case-to-case basis, according to members of the AMA. Still, lawmakers do not accept this argument because for them, the more pressing issue here would be ‘medical identity theft.’
It remains to be seen whether or not AMA’s implementation of the red flags would indeed take place in November 2009. Both sides would have to play the waiting game until then.