What exactly is identity theft and why it is affecting so many people’s life? The news of the people being victimized by this identity theft is increasing every day. It is not only the identity; people’s lives are getting changed with this dangerous crime. If one wants to avoid this theft and stay away, one must understand it in depth.
Identity theft is basically defined as the theft where person’s money and reputation is on stake. A thief steals person’s secured information and misuses it to get access to money and property. Although personal information is held with care yet there are million of loopholes from where this information can be leaked.
In identity theft, your identity can be stolen by just your credit card and your signature on it. Once your identity is stolen a person can pretend to be the owner of that identity and get hand on the money. Credit card is not the only gate for these thieves. They can be the hackers and hack your information from internet.
Money is not the only target of these criminals. They can do many crimes using your identity and in the end you will be the one paying the consequences. These criminals can steal your credit card records and call your card issuer to change the billing address. Once it is done, they can then charge purchases on your account without you knowing it.
If a person changes the billing address, you will be facing massive damage because you will find out late about the theft. In this situation that fraud might open another account using your identity and he has to pay no bills. You will realize this as a problem when the delinquent accounts turn up on your credit report.
The worst situation comes when the fraud opens a new account with your name and gets a new identification card with your name but his picture. He may take huge loans and bad checks under your name. After his game is over, he will be running away from police bravely showing your name and you will be the one facing police.
Police may arrest you when the criminal does not appear in court. A warrant will be issued in his name, which is in actual your name. Now you might be feeling the bad face of getting your identity stolen.
If you want to keep yourself protected from such criminals, you need to be extra vigilant with your information. Consider it like diamonds in your hand and keep them under key and lock. Do not ever speak your personal information aloud in crowd. When you are in stores doing some shopping. Never hand over your credit cards to the shop keeper.
Try to minimize your risk, limit your use of ATM cards. Never carry your check books along with you. For your credit accounts, you can report it to the different fraud agencies who can issue a fraud alert on your account. This alert would notify creditors to contact you every time a new account is being made under your name. You can also have your affected credit accounts closed to stop further infringement. Report also your problem to the police as well as the FTC in order to make the necessary legal arrangements and cases in the event that the perpetrators are apprehended.
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