Beware of Identity Theft
July 22nd, 2007 at 12:01 pm (Uncategorized, Identity Theft)
Have you ever thought why the identity thieves need the personal data of the citizens? Different hackers, insiders, spy-programs hunt this information. In other words, with the help of this data an identity thief can persuade the third party - in most cases this is a bank, insurance company or lending agency, - that he is a rightful customer and under the other person’s name can take some money on credit or take care of his/her funds.
Wide scope of the identity theft. Nowadays in the States the identity theft can remind us of something epidemic, as to the huge number of this crime committed. Around 28 millions of Americans fell a victim to the identity theft for the last five years. According to different researches a number of these widespread crimes is still very high and it is constantly gaining in scope.
When bad identity theft happens to good people. Once upon a time one guy, coming home to Salt Lake City from Florida via South Carolina lost his social security card. He found out that fact very soon and gave a call to the social security office. They gave him a new card and things quieted down. But in a year he received a bunch of bills on thousands of dollars for the purchases he never made from different companies, banks, etc. And after a while those companies filed a number of suits against him for not paying his bills. The guy had to prove his alibi that he was in South Carolina just for an hour en route. He had to beg his bosses to give various certificates proving that on that very day he could not buy anything in South Carolina, that he was in the office or traveled on business or was attending some courses. Poor fellow had to recollect every hour of the past year. Can you imagine what happened to his life?
Ways out. You can protect yourself enrolling to some identity data protection service, which will create some defense system against identity thieves. For example, you can do it on-line on PrivacyMatters.com. But still you will never be 100% protected, because the hackers gaining the knowledge day by day and they develop their skills to break the systems even in the companies which are paid for providing your security.