What is identity theft and how is it a growing problem?

In a case of identity theft, a criminal gathers personal information about an individual and assumes their identity, using that personal information to apply for loans, credit cards, and credit accounts. These identity theft criminals can also steal someone’s banking or password information to gain access to their accounts and money.

In 2008 alone, about 5% of the US population became an unfortunate victim of identity theft. It is alarming to think that out of every 20 people statistically, that 1 person will be an identity theft victim. It is also estimated that more than 50% of all people will experience being a victim of identity theft in their lifetime; it is more likely for someone to be an identity theft victim rather than not to be in his or her lifetime! In recent years, the number one source of complaints and cases submitted to the FTC involves identity theft. These facts and figures have contributed to growing worries and concerns about this type of identity crime and highlight the need for identity protection.

Although one might not think so, especially parents, children can also become victims of identity theft. In about 4% of all identity theft cases, the victim is under the age of 18, which translates to a total of about 400,000 children identity theft cases a year. This is not an insignificant portion of cases. In a ridiculous and unbelievable case, identity criminals had racked up over $250,000 worth of debt in the a child’s name even before he was ten years old. This highlights the importance of identity protection services and vigilance even for children’s personal information and social security number.

What are some common ways for identity criminals to commit identity theft?

Knowing and understanding the methods by which criminals gather your personal or credit information in order to commit identity theft would help with your vigilance and avoiding of identity theft. The most significant sources of personal information stolen for identity theft:

• gathering information about the deceased from obituaries then stealing their mail
• gathering information through internet such as spam emails, viruses, trojans, phishing, or fake websites
• stealing mail with credit card offers, personal information, or loan offers
• forging a social security or forms of identification
• theft of credit card numbers of slips in real life shopping situations, stores, and restaurants

What are identity theft protection services?

Although each identity theft protection and identity protection service will have differences in their exact services that they offer, they will usually share some similar things that they do. An identity protection service will first usually start out with placing fraud alerts onto your credit reports, so that any credit report request will have to be approved by you. This allows you to spot hard credit requests related to new applications for credit cards or loans that criminals with your personal information may do.

Identity protection services will usually also watch over your credit files with each of the three credit bureaus so that you can be alerted of any changes within 24 hours. This allows you to spot mistakes and errors and even fraud as soon as possible. Identity theft protection services may also give you access to your credit reports and credit scores so that you can check and verify past entries for any mistakes or fraud.

Other aspects of identity protection services include eliminating junk mail credit card and loan offers through the mail since theft of that mail is a major source of identity theft. This is done by disallowing credit companies and lenders access to your general credit information through soft credit inquiries. Identity theft protection services will also monitor back channels and black market channels to monitor whether your personal information is being sold by criminals. Some identity theft services will also guard your banking information, medical records, or other important items not included in your credit file but not all services will do this.