My purse was stolen in December 1990. In February 1991, I started getting notices of bounced checks. About a year later, I received information that someone using my identity had defaulted on a number of lease agreements and bought a car. In 1997, I learned that someone had been working under my Social Security number for a number of years. A man had been arrested and used my SSN on his arrest sheet. There’s a hit in the FBI computers for my SSN with a different name and gender. I can’t get credit because of this situation. I was denied a mortgage loan, employment, credit cards, and medical care for my children. I’ve even had auto insurance denied, medical insurance and tuition assistance denied.  From a consumer complaint to the FTC, January 2, 2001 Everyday we all do things without thinking we are tempting fate. We write checks for goods, or use a credit card. We put  mail out in our home mailboxes for pickup. Apply for new credit cards or toss away the solicitations. We give information to people who ask for it even for legitimate reasons. Order new checks from the bank. These things have all become part of our way of life so much we do not even think about the actions. Other people are thinking about what we do and how we do it. Identity theft has always been somewhat of a concern, but in the 1990's a new breed of criminals became real interested in our daily lives. These specialists learned how easy it is to make a living by stealing other people's identities. What is identity theft? An identity thief steals key information about you without your knowledge and uses it to commit fraud and theft. One of the most common frauds is using your information to steal money from you or credit card companies in your name. There are two other identity theft objectives: using your information as an identity when dealing with the police or government. The third is called cloning your identity. We all know about the first use of someone else's identity to steal credit cards or credit history. This is the most common form of identity theft. Your credit card numbers are obtained from a discarded receipt you signed at a restaurant or store. Or the number is taken from a vendor you did business with by a hacker that got into their system. The thief could get a credit solicitation that you tossed in your garbage without destroying it. Or he steals your mail which happens to include a payment to your credit card company. There are numerous ways a thief can get your credit card numbers. This category also includes getting your social security number to enable the thief to apply for credit in your name. This could allow the thief to do more than steal a credit card. Some people have been surprised to learn a thief purchased a home out of state using their credit. The knowledge came when the thief stopped paying the payments and the mortgage company calls to find out why the payments are not being made. The second category of identity theft involves having identitification papers that happen to have your name and address on them. The thief is stopped by the police, gives your identity, then skips on the bail. There are many examples of this happening to people. In Gary, Indiana, a fellow was arrested on a fugitive warrant after being stopped for a minor traffic offense. He was jailed. It took him a year, a year he spent in jail, to convince someone that he was not the person the police were looking for. A reporter was curious and went to Indianapolis and ran a check on this fellow's driver license. Turned out there were two versions, same address and name with two different pictures. Another fellow was jailed in South Africa in a similar situation with an outstanding FBI warrant. Fortunately for him a few weeks later the real crook was arrested in Las Vegas. The third category involves someone literally "cloning" your identity. For various reasons the thief wants to become someone else. Maybe he is wanting to escape a bad past, or past due child support. Whatever the reason, the thief steals your information and becomes you. A Minneapolis woman got a letter from the IRS saying she owed back taxes on income from a job she had in Wisconsin. Only problem was she had never worked in Wisconsin. She was able to get the employer's contact information and she called. The lady using her social security number was still working for the employer. This is more wide spread then most of us realize. An illegal alien, for example, cannot hold most fulltime jobs without a social security number. You can't get a SS number without applying for it and letting the government know who you are. So often the alien borrows a SS number.  So how big of a crime is this? Huge. More than 9.9 million people had some form of identity theft occur to them last year alone. Over 27.3 million in the last five years. And those numbers are doubling. Identity theft is the fastest growing crime in the US. The cost to businesses in 2003 reached $48 billion with a cost to consumers of $5 billion. It is a very serious crime. The victim can spends thousands of dollars and many hours of time trying to fix the problems. A survey done by the Identity Theft Resource Center surveyed 173 IDT victims. Experience of the Victim Study (ITRC) 2000* 2003 % of Change Amount of Fraud Charges $18,000 $92,893 416% Time spend by victim to resolve case - Average 175 hours 607 hours 247% Expenses Reported $808 out of pocket $1,495 out of pocket, $16,000 including wages 85% * From Nowhere to Turn  No one is immune. A fellow had three DWI's, real bad credit and at least one warrant for his arrest. Problem is the guy is only six years old.  How is the personal information being stolen and used? In 2003, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported the following: Misused Accounts? Credit Cards 67% Checking  19% How was the information obtained? Lost or stolen personal information 25% Stolen mail 4% How did the victim discover the theft? Monitoring credit accounts 52% Alerted to suspicious account activity by companies such as credit card issuers or bank 26% applied for credit and were turned down 8% So what you can do to protect your identity? Be sure to read things you should be doing to protect your identity. Click here for that page. Even if you are proactive you cannot guarantee total protection of your identity. There is a product that can help you when it happens. One of our companies offers a unique product called Identity Theft Shield to help you protect and restore your identity should it be stolen. One of eight people in the US has been a victim of identity theft.  If you would like more information and to read about the IDT shield, you can find that at Identity Theft Shield offered by PrePaid Legal, Inc.