America's Toughest Sheriff Is Victim of Identity Theft and Possible Identity Crisis

Someone took Sheriff Joe Arpaio's credit-card information and went on a supermarket sweep spending at a Jewel store $291 in Chicago — a city that the notorious Arizona lawman says he hasn't visited in many years, and the home of one of the Maricopa County boss' favorite people to investigate, President Obama. And unlike his obsession with Obama's birth certificate, it sounds like America's Toughest Sheriff might actually take it easy on this slightly less important fraudster.

RELATED: Bachmann Courts Endorsement from Sheriff Joe Arpaio

"Discover alerted the sheriff about the problem and he has since canceled the card," reports the CBS affiliate in Phoenix. "He says if he finds out the people responsible were struggling, he may not press charges." Well, that's nice of him. Just last week, Arpaio sounded a lot harsher, as usual, when it came to the topic of amnesty and Obama's new immigration-reform policy, saying: "And where’s the fairness here? Why do you want to give amnesty to those people that came across our border illegally?" So, yeah, we're not even going to try and pretend to understand Arpaio's sliding scale of moral law-breaking.  

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Identity theft: Dangerous Crime

Identity theft is a dangerous crime which occurs when a fraud misuses your identity with the help of your personal information for his purposes. Personal information might include social security number, credit card, driver’s license number and much such information like that. The fraud might use this information for many illegal activities.

The victim is left with bad credit and long term recovery procedure of retrieving financial health. Victim will not only suffer through financial loss but also his social reputation would be highly damaged. Finance can be recovered easily but the reputation is hard to earn and hardest to recover back.

Identity theft has ruined many people’s lives before this law was made. In many cases the criminal misused the credit card of the victim to get many loans, cars, and guns and had the courage to call the helpless victim to tease him. Prey could not help this situation because there was no such law or agencies to take action on that.

Today, laws and agencies try their best to help but even now there is no complete security for your information. You have to be extra vigilant while handling your personal data. You personal data may be leaked out due to following carelessness on your side:

• If you throw away your important information into dustbin without properly shredding the paper.
• If you loose your wallet or your mail.
• If you put your personal data on the web unnecessarily.
• If you keep giving away your information out in public on a phone.
• If you are in habit of using your credit card or ATM card most often.
• Even if you are not that careless, they may steal your information from a loan or credit application form which you filled in a public organization like banks and hospitals.
• They may hack in to your systems to steal away your files.
• They may be your close relatives to deceive you.

Of course no one can make sure above situations never happen; but you may minimize the damage. Here are some tips which may help you in this regard:

• Keep a regular check on your credit reports to make sure you are the only user.
• Never carry your social security number along with you.
• Never give away your social security number to anyone unless you are sure about their authenticity.
• Do not put your socials security number or driver’s license number on your checks.
• Carefully destroy your papers with secured information with the help of a paper shredder.
• Do not reply to any suspicious mail.
• Make sure the mail box at your home is properly locked.
• Make an effort to reduce the number of preapproved credit card offers that you receive.

These ordinary sounding tips will help your soul at the end. Remember it is better to prevent the disease than to cure.

How to cure identity theft?

Identity theft is becoming the biggest crime throughout the world. Identity theft occurs when a person steals the personal information of any other person and misuses it for his own purposes. The advent of technology and cyber world is also increasing this crime every day. On internet it is easier to access personal information. The rapid increase in the usage of credit cards and ATM cards is another reason of this identity theft.

No doubt every person finds it easy to do transactions and shopping online. It seems convenient but it is risky too. When a person puts his personal information on websites, it becomes easier for the hackers to get access on your information.

These criminals can use your credit information for many crimes without you being aware.

The reason for the increase of this crime is that any person who possesses credit cards or even social security number can be a potential victim of this theft. This is considered dangerous because a person is unaware of this damage until the criminal’s game is over.

There are many ways that can make this identity theft possible. If you are in habit of putting your personal information on internet, you can be the most probable victim of this crime. If you loose your wallet with your important information or if the personal documents are stolen, you can be a victim. Your personal information can be stolen if you leave them unlocked at home or in office.

Sometimes the use of credit cards in utility store can be dangerous. Frequent use of ATM card can also be the cause of leakage of your personal information. Do not ever tell proudly the amount you are carrying in your bank accounts. Your bank mailing address should be the one where you are available all the time.

The hard fact behind this crime is that there exists no single solution to completely neglect this theft. One can minimize the risk but still there is a probability of falling into that category. One needs to be aware of all the cases and options to minimize the risk.

You need to be very careful while using your credit card. If you are not using them frequently, you can have a regular check on your credit reports. This will give you detailed information of all the transactions and billing and you may know if anyone else is using your credit card. There exist some steps which you may take if you found out someone else misusing your card.

The first thing you must do soon after figuring out some suspicious activity is to contact a fraud department. They will start a fraud alert on your credit and you will be notified at every single activity with your credit card. Like if the fraud tries to open a new account with your name, or he would try to change the billing address.

You must also file a complaint with FTC that will help the agency understand the problem in detail. Identity theft and the problems that victims face on such circumstances. This will be able to help in formulating better solutions to the increasing identity theft problem. Awareness is the key to preventing identity theft. Being responsible for protecting how we divulge our personal information can help greatly in making us avoid being unwilling victims.