Give me convenience or give me death! With our increased reliance on the convenience of the web and plastic over cash, we have opened a pandora's box in crime. In this case, Pandora is called identity theft. In this modern digital age, we are defined by our virtual personal profile in databases. Identity theft is simply the kidnapping of this virtual profile. Once obtained, the theif then uses the profile in a variety of profitable manners. Stolen credit cards are the most common form of identity theft, right? Nope. Misused credit card accounts are the result of the swiping of the real prize. What is the real prize? Social security numbers, the gateway to your finances. 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. If your social security number is sold to an illegal immigrant, you could be in for a really nasty surprise. Why? Well, the money that person earns will be report to the IRS and it will expect taxes to be paid. When they aren't, guess who gets called? Once a theif is armed with your social security number, there are a lot of ways they can go. A classic approach is to open a bank account. Why is this a problem? They write bad checks against the account until the bank closes it and looks for you. 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. Sooner or later, you will figure out that you have been a victim of identity theft. It may be when collectors call or when your ATM card doesn't work or when a credit card charge is rejected. Whatever the occasion, it will not be pleasant. Some people discount identity theft because it is not a crime causing physical pain. Obviously,they have never had it happen to them. It can take months and even years to resolve it, so take steps to prevent it.
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Give me convenience or give me death! With our increased reliance on the convenience of the web and plastic over cash, we have opened a pandora's box in crime. In this case, Pandora is called identity theft.
Get more identity theft information at ArticlesonIdentityTheft.com.
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