Are You Doing Enough To Protect Your Identity?

Is There Time To Protect Your Identity?

You’ve done everything you’re supposed to do – document shredding, password changing and all the privacy stuff on Facebook – but even after all of that, you still know your chances are good that one day you’ll become a victim of America’s fastest growing crime: Identity theft.

 An estimated one in 10 people in the United States is victimized by identity theft each year, the number is growing and all the password changing you do won’t protect you.

 The sums of money stolen from Identity theft victims and businesses, rivals the recession-proof income of the drug trade. People are not just making a living from it, they are getting filthy rich.

 A new wrinkle in the ID theft handbook is “moles”.  These people, unknown to a business,  are hired to work inside places like credit card companies, banks, schools and hospitals, car dealerships.  Their position is to gather credit card numbers, SS numbers and other vital, valuable and private information. That information is then sold on the open market.

 There are entire companies based on theft. One bust involved a call center where workers combed obituaries and then, working from scripts pinned to a wall, called funeral homes saying they needed to verify specific information so the grieving families could receive their death benefit payments.

 A few questions later and ka-ching. The caller had all the information necessary to open a credit card account under the name of the deceased. This scheme is particularly profitable, because prosecutors can’t prove the victim didn’t give the information voluntarily – which is necessary for a conviction, because all the victims in the case were dead.

 “Moles” get paid well for their work.  On average $500 for a Social Security number pilfered from a county tax record and another $500 to change an address on a credit card account. 

 The ultimate Rate of Return is generally realized when these ID’s are sold at Flea Markets and to underground Identity traffickers … who resell the numbers and cards to illegal immigrants, drug dealers and criminals.. all with the intent of stealing you blind before you know what happened to you.

 People who run such schemes typically invest $2,000 on moles and other expenses involved.  For this investment they charge up to $75,000 in purchases and just before closing the account, get cash advances of as much as $10,000. 

 The average identity theft victim doesn’t realize he or she is being ripped off until a more than a year after the deed is completed.  By that time the culprit has done significant damage to your credit, your finances and your character and closed the account.  With so little evidence the likelihood of catching the criminal is slim and prosecution even slimmer. 

 One of the strongest and, maybe the only battle, to be fought on Identity Theft is to raise awareness.  As more and more people understand the seriousness of Identity Theft, more will find good policies to protect them… and as the protection companies get involved and begin tracking and prosecuting these people as the criminals they are, there will be the opportunity to change this trend.