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Identity Theft

Identity Theft - You could be a Victim

by Wayne Wargo (PenWay.org)

We are all well aware that identity theft is not a victimless crime and needs to be dealt with harshly. Obviously, the target of identity theft is to obtain personal identity information that will enable the thief to assume another's identity.

People's livelihoods are affected greatly by identity theft and those that steal identities could care less. So we should never feel sorry for these persons, no matter what their situation. They caused our situation and the law needs to deal with them.

Estimates from many sources vary as to how many Americans are victims of identity theft. But a rough estimate is about 10 million in the past 12 months.

Thieves will use your identity to apply for credit and open bank accounts. Then they won't pay the bills and they'll ruin your credit and your good name. Once they get your personal information, they apply for credit using this valuable information. Then they use that credit to make purchases, never pay for them and leave you with the bill.

Valuable personal data, like your social security number, bank account or credit card number and other valuable identifying data can be used by thieves. Perhaps the scariest aspect is that you could actually be arrested for a crime that someone else committed while using your identity.

Identity theft is more prevalent offline with paper than online. One surprising finding: in half of the cases where the perpetrator is known, someone close to the victim commits identity fraud. Thieves have always found ways to illegally acquire people's personal information through confidence scams, stealing mail from mailboxes, or even looking through trash cans or dumpsters.

The 35-44 demographic age group has the highest average fraud amount, estimated at close to $10,000. The 65+ demographic age group has the smallest rate of identity fraud victims. However, elderly Americans are highly vulnerable to other types of identity theft schemes, particularly the various telephone scams used by perpetrators to acquire personal information. It's always a good idea to mention this fact to your parents or grandparents and other loved ones.

Almost half of all college students receive credit card applications on a daily or weekly basis. Many of these students throw out card applications without destroying them. Nearly a third of students rarely, if ever, reconcile their credit card and checking account balances. Almost 50 percent of students have had grades posted by social security number.

So far, we've seen several "solutions" to this problem: forcing companies to disclose when they lose personal information, forcing companies to secure personal information, forcing financial institutions to enhance their authentication procedures.

Please remember that anyone can be a victim of identity theft. Safeguards should be put in place and you must always be vigilant in keeping your confidential information out of reach of those who don't need to know. The Internet actually mirrors real life in more ways than one, particularly in relation to crime. Make certain that you don't give out personal information via the Internet unless you know who are actually dealing with. We're living in the information age and your information is out there just waiting to be stolen by someone. You have to face the fact that if you are an identity theft victim, this crime is about more than the just loss of money. It is about the loss of self-worth, security, independence and self-esteem.

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