Criminals know the way to steal your identity, and the worst part is that it's not all that difficult. You know all those credit card applications you get in the mail? If you don't shred them, they can use that to steal your identity.
It's not above them to sift through garbage just to obtain a social security number or a driver's license number. Once they have these vital bits of information, it's easy for them to steal your identity.
What they will do is scary. They will apply for credit cards in your name and max them out within days. They will obtain loans in your name and never make a payment. Then the loan company comes after you for the money. It's something that affects millions and millions of people each year and it can be a real mess when it comes to your credit report.
As many as 85 percent of all identity theft victims find out about the crime only when they are denied credit or employment, contacted by the police, or have to deal with collection agencies, credit cards, and bills.
A study on the aftermath of an identity theft by the nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center found that victims spend 600 hours recovering from the crime because they must contact and work with credit cards, banks, credit bureaus, and law enforcement. The time can add up to as much as $16,000 in lost wages or income.
The number of reported cases of identity theft is increasing steadily. There is no one reason for this, but rather this is due to several ways in which our lives have changed in recent years, all of which make it easier for people to obtain our personal information.
In the United States, Social Security numbers are used more commonly as a means of identification. The Internet has made the transmission of personal information easy and, at times, less secure. Online retailers store our credit card information and contact information in databases we assume to be secured.
Marketing databases not only contain personal information, but they aggregate information on our spending habits as well as contact information. But potentially nefarious employees of these companies could have access to that information. They can then sell it online in chat rooms where criminals meet to swap information.
Even in the days of e-mail and instant messaging, the postal mail can also play a surprising role in identity theft. Checks can be stolen from the outgoing mail. Credit card companies bombard their customers and potential customers with pre-approved offers that need very little personal information to complete.
Credit card issuers also send what they call "courtesy checks" to customers who can use them to make charges on a card. Many experts consider them an invitation to identity theft.
One of the increasingly common ways that criminals try to obtain personal information is by using what is called a "phishing attack." If you have e-mail, the chances are good someone has tried to get you to bite.
Phishing combines a criminal attempt at obtaining personal information with another plague of the Internet age - spam. Potential victims receive an e-mail from what appears to a bank, an online payment company like PayPal, or a retailer like eBay or Amazon.com. The message is usually sent using HTML e-mail and, when opened, uses company logos and symbols to make it appear to be legitimate.
The e-mail asks the receiver for user names, passwords, account numbers, or some other type of personal information by saying they are updating records or something related to their account requires their attention. The e-mail usually links to a site that also appears to be legitimate using logos and other symbols of a real company, where visitors are asked to supply the information.
The first step to avoid becoming the victim of a phishing attack is to know what companies do business with you by e-mail and familiarizing yourself with the types information they request and how they request it.
What you will likely learn quickly is that, while online retailers you frequent and financial services firms you use online often send you e-mail to make you aware of new products or services, or even to alert you when your online bill is ready to be viewed, they rarely if ever ask for any information from you.
Banks and financial services firms will never ask you for any personal information via e-mail because e-mail can be notoriously insecure. So any e-mail asking you for personal or account information, such as passwords, Social Security numbers, PINs, credit or check card numbers, or other confidential information should be deemed suspicious.
Often the sender of a phishing e-mail may appear to be legitimate, but e-mail addresses are easily spoofed. Just look at the amount of spam you probably get that appears to be from friends, co-workers, or even yourself.
If a phishing e-mail directs you to a link using an HTML e-mail, the text of the link may appear to be legitimate, but following that link often brings you to a Web site where the URL (in your Web browser's location bar) is often an IP address (basically numbers separated by periods, like 128.0.0) or a site other than the institution you think sent you the e-mail.
