Home | Computer | Data Recovery
When was the last time you walked into a bank to get cash from a cashier? It has probably been a long time. This tells you how reliant we have become on plastic cards and digital communication. It also explains the presence of identity theft. The phrase identity theft generally means what it sounds like. It is the theft of a person's identity by another for some profitable purpose. That being said, identity theft actually comes in a number of different forms. Mention identity theft and most people think of stolen credit cards. This occurs, but is actually the end result of the theft. Credit card accounts are not the target of most criminals, social security numbers are. Whether you realize it or not, social security numbers are the foundation of our financial society. You must have one to play. By play, I mean open credit card and bank accounts, take loans and so on. This is exactly what happens. Criminals make great capitalists. They can find multiple ways to use ill gotten gains to make a profit. A new approach is to sell your social security number to illegal immigrants. The immigrants often need to show them to hold a job. The reselling of social security numbers has nasty aspect to it. The income from the secondary person appears under your social security number with the IRS. Guess what happens when your tax return figures don't match theirs? A tax audit! Then there is the classic bank account scheme. The first identity theives simply took social security numbers, opened bank accounts with them and wrote bad checks. It still happens today and banks will come looking for you eventually. Finally, identity thieves need to chat by phone frequently, but why should they pay for this when you will? Yes, they use your information to buy cell phones and open new accounts with the mobile providers. As with any crime, identity theft is not something you want to experience. Unlike other crimes, you rarely realize you are a victim until things are really bad. Theives have bills sent to addresses other than yours, so you don't know it is occuring. So, how do most people discover they have been hit? They start getting calls from credit bureaus or collection companies. Alternatively, they find all their credit cards shut off and their bank account frozen. Identity theft is one of the more aggravating crimes out there. If it happens to you, expect to spend months trying to get the mess worked out. Businesses and the government are getting better at dealing with it, but it is still a nightmare.
Article Source: http://www.philvault.com
Learn why you should be concerned about identity theft at ArticlesonIdentityTheft.com.
Please Rate this Article
5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5
Not yet Rated
