Identity Theft and Why You Need to Protect Your Identity   by Jing Struve

in Family    (submitted 2010-03-08)

Identity theft is also called inaccurate credit reporting. It is the fastest growing crime in America. According to the Washington Post, in 2008, “reported” data breached increased 47% over 2007 and it will continue to occur and thieves will continue to find ingenious methods to hijack and sell your personal information. When inaccurate data finds its way into your credit reports, you will pay a high price. That three little numbers qualify or disqualify you from buying an automobile, financing a home or obtaining credit, it also determines your insurance premium as well as your loan interest rates.

Another study shows that one in four credit reports have errors and an identity theft occurs every 3 seconds. This can happen to anyone regardless of the age, gender, good credit or no credit. The worst part is that most people do not even know if their identity has been stolen until the damage had been done.

The following are some common types of identity theft:

1. Credit Related Identity Theft: the thieves use it to open credit cards under your name, phone accounts, and utility services, take out loan applications. You are responsible for the payments. 2. Social Security Number Identity Theft: someone steals your social security number and obtains employment in your name. The thief’s employer reports wages earned to the IRS under your SSN leaving you to pay income taxes on these earnings. 3. Medical Identity Theft: the thieves often get your personal information from employees at medical facilities or hack into medical databases, the information is then resold on the black market. Your personal information is used to obtain medical insurance, medical treatment or prescriptions. The worst part is that when you seek care you can end up with the wrong medical history, wrong blood type, wrong allergies and other error that could end up being deadly for you. 4. Driver’s License Identity Theft: someone commits traffic related offenses in your name simply because they don’t want to be charged. When the identity thief fails to appear in court, warrants are issued in your name. 5. Character Identity Theft: someone impersonate you and commits a crime in your name resulting in warrants issued in your name, arrests made, and time spent in jail. 6. Software Theft: the PCs infected with identity theft malware. Victims are usually infected after being duped into downloading virus programs through fake website or pop-ups. Sounds familiar? These malicious programs such as key logger spy ware can go undetected for quite a period of time, whether or not the latest antivirus updates is installed. All your personal data such as SSN, bank account number, passwords, and pin numbers entered on you PC are recorded by the malware and sent to the thieves.

Document shredding is not enough to protect your identity. You need to be prepared for the following questions:

1. How to prevent identity theft? 2. How to protect yourself from ID theft? 3. If your wallet got stolen, what do you do? 4. Can you restore your identity in the shortest period of time if got stolen?

While you are looking for Identity Theft Protection Program, make sure the Identity Theft Shield covers the following three areas:

1. Continues Identity Monitoring: the system monitors your personal identity information 24/7. 2. Detect: you will be notified if any new accounts are established in your name or if negative notations are included in your credit report. 3. Restoration: the system will clean up the problem and restore your original identifies in the shortest period of time.

Most ID theft victims end up spending an average of almost $1,300 dollars of their own money and about 180 hours in an effort to clean up, resolve and regain their stolen identity back. An estimated 9.96 million people had some sort of Identity theft crime committed against them in 2008.

Are you protected? Take more pro-active measures to stop ID theft. Be aware and be alert to your own identity.

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About the Author

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