Protecting Your Identity

The commercials are all over television – and they certainly are attention-grabbing!  They’re the ones where the heavy, bald guy is sitting in his easy chair talking in a squeaky female voice about all the clothes he bought – including a bustier.  Or the little old lady speaking with the gruff voice of a younger man about the sweet motorcycle she now owned.

While we might find these commercials funny, the real victims of identity theft find them disturbing and even painful.  The media uses these types of ads to alert us to the crime of identity theft and how everyday people can be affected.  You don’t have to have a lot of money to be taken advantage of.  All you need is a social security number – which, of course, we all have.

The criminals who perpetrate the crime of identity theft are sly and cunning.  Before you can even know it, you’re credit is ruined and you must “jump through hoops” just to get it repaired a small bit.

Identity theft is a serious crime – one that is occurring with an alarming frequency.  The statistics are mind-boggling.

1 in 4 US households have been victimized
10 million people last year affected
Loss to businesses tops $47.6 billion
Loss to victims about $5 billion
Each victim spends about 30 hours trying to recover their name.

The problem of identity theft has become the number one fear of consumers in the world today, and unfortunately, it’s becoming more and more common.

Consider the following cases of identity theft and how it can be used to perpetrate crime:

Several people obtained names and Social Security numbers of several hundred high-ranking active-duty and retired U.S. military officers from a public Internet Website. They used the officers’ names and numbers to apply for credit cards and bank and corporate credit in the officers’ names.
A man stole the identities of more than 100 people by working with a woman who had worked in the payroll department of a cellular telephone company. In that position, the woman had access to confidential employee information such as Social Security numbers and home addresses. Using the employees’ names and Social Security numbers, the man was able to access their stock trading accounts at an online brokerage and transfer money to another account that he had set up. One victim had more than $287,000 taken from his brokerage account without his knowledge.
When various people who picked up their mail at a U.S. post office threw away merchandise catalogs, which contained identifying information such as their names and account numbers, a woman went through the trash, removed the catalogs, and used the identifying information to order merchandise in other people’s names.
A man stole private bank account information about an insurance company’s policyholders. He used that information to deposit approximately 4,300 counterfeit bank drafts, totaling more than $764,000, and to withdraw funds from the accounts of the policyholders.

It can happen without you even knowing it, and can ruin lives.  It can take a con just a few minutes to ruin a good name you’ve worked to build.

With the internet, identity theft is going global.  The scary part is these criminals are getting better and better.  You can become a victim and not even know it was YOU who started the cycle.  It can start with a simple e-mail.

The phenomenon has sprung even more non-legitimate scams preying on the fears of having one’s identity stolen.  People are cashing in on the hysteria and costing consumers even more money.

The victims believe, from experience, that it is the only crime where the suspect is presumed innocent before proven guilty, and the victim is "guilty" until proven "innocent."

In this book, we’ll take an in-depth look at identity theft.  We’ll explore how your personal information can get stole