Can you Prevent this from Happening?

File a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) by contacting the FTC’s Consumer Response Center. The FTC also may refer victim complaints to other appropriate government agencies and private organizations for further action. The FTC also has an online identity theft compliant form that can help them gather information about identity theft and lead to law enforcement actions. The FTC does not have the authority to bring criminal cases, but it does assist victims by providing information to help them resolve the financial and other problems that can result from identity theft. The FTC is the federal clearinghouse for complaints by victims of identity theft. Congress declared identity theft a federal crime in 1998 when it passed the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act.

It involves any instance where a person uses someone else’s identification documents or other identifiers in order to impersonate that person for whatever reason. In fact, a total of 25 types of financial identity fraud are investigated by the United States Secret Service. According to a September 2003 survey conducted by the Federal Trade Commission, an estimated 10 million people in the United States found out they were victims of identity theft in the previous year. While financial identity theft is the most prevalent (of the approximate 10,000 financial crime arrests that Secret Service agents made in 1997, 94 percent involved identity theft), it certainly isn’t the only type. Financial fraud – This type of identity theft includes bank fraud, credit card fraud, computer and telecommunications fraud, social program fraud, tax refund fraud, mail fraud, and several more.

­While some information about your life is pretty well protected, such as medical, financial and academic records, your other identifying information (social security number, home address, etc) is not so protected. One scary statistic: According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), in 2000, 19 percent (as opposed to 13 percent in 2001) of all victims of identity theft who completed that section of the FTC complaint form had a personal relationship with the thief; 10 percent of those thieves were family members.

Protecting yourself from identity theft takes proactive effort. DON’T give out your Social Security number unless it is absolutely necessary. Many companies collect more information than they really need. You can’t simply assume it’s not going to happen to you and go on about your life — it can happen to anyone. It even happens to celebrities. Oprah Winfrey, Tiger Woods, Robert De Niro and Martha Stewart have all had their identities stolen. While you can’t ever totally protect yourself from these thieves, you can at least make yourself less attractive as a victim by doing what you can to make it more difficult for them to access your information.

This too may be the first notice you get that someone has stolen your identity. Get as much information from them as you can and investigate immediately. All a thief has to do is write a bad check, deposit it into your account and use the “less cash received” line to withdraw your money. GUARD deposit slips as closely as you do checks. Some insurance companies offer identity theft insurance. Not only do they have your name, address and account number printed on them, but they can also be used to withdraw money from your account.