How To Commit Identity Theft
In this age of instant credit and pre-approved credit offers, identity thieves require little more than your name and Social Security number, plus your date of birth if they get lucky, to assume your identity. These fraudsters are skillful at using a variety of low-tech and high-tech methods to obtain your personal information. This article is basically an identity theft how to. Stealing wallets and purses is the old-fashioned way for thieves to take on your identity. While that still happens, imposters employ many other methods to obtain the bits and pieces of information that identify you. We still find that most information is stolen in the real world, but it's used extensively in the virtual world of the Internet. Thieves steal mail from mailboxes in an effort to obtain bank statements and/or credit card statements, pre-approved credit card offers, utility statements, driver's license numbers, Social Security numbers, and tax information. They may pose as you and report and address change in order to divert your mail, including those ubiquitous pre-approved offers of credit, to their own address - or more likely to a drop box. At the same time, they report a lost credit card and order a new one. Federal law requires credit card companies to verify any address change, but often it just doesn't happen. Identity thieves dumpster dive to fish un-shredded loan and credit card applications from the trash of households and businesses. They might fraudulently gain access to your credit report by pretending to be a landlord, an employer, or a loan officer. Or they might illicitly obtain Social Security numbers and credit information while actually employed by a company with access to a credit bureau database. Identity thieves scam some through e-mail or regular mail or by phone, pretending to be a legitimate agency or company asking for your personal data. A very common method is to gain insider access to an agency or company's personnel files, critical databases maintained by the company, which contain Social Security numbers, dates of birth, biometric information, and other sensitive information. Business record theft is a growing threat. It can be as simple as stealing files or a computer, or it can be sophisticated electronic hacking by fraudsters living in a foreign country, thousands of miles away. They use personal information they find out about you in chat rooms, e-mails, and from information brokers on the Internet. Sadly, some identity thieves obtain in-home access to personal documents. They might be relatives or friends, roommates, household workers, home-healthcare providers, or spouses going through a divorce who hold a grudge. Worse yet, sons and daughters do this to elderly parents, and some parents steal the identities of their children. While we hate to think of those closest to us committing identity theft, it is more common than you might think. These days, we are also seeing more high-tech identity theft via the Internet. Fee-based computer services sell Social Security numbers and other identifying information for as little as $25. Although reputable information vendors are limiting access to Social Security numbers, the Internet is the Wild West of the information age, and is virtually impossible to regulate. Another form of high-tech thievery is hacking into the records of Internet based businesses or governmental entities that don't encrypt their files. Most victims of identity theft have no clue how the imposter obtained their identifying information. The victim rarely meets his impersonator, and in most cases, because law enforcement hasn't the resources to investigate, the crime goes unsolved. The fraudster is free to find new targets. |
