Identity theft is one of the continuously growing crimes in today s society. In America alone, the 2008 statistics has shown that over ten million people have experienced a certain form of identity theft, making it more possible that it will hit you. This is why you should do a routine and regular identity theft check on yourself and everyone on your household so you can prevent any serious damages identity theft can do to you.
But before you can do that, you may need to further understand how serious the crime could be. So, here is a list that can help you have a better grasp what identity theft really is.
1. Identity theft can cause damages on your finances. As credit identity theft is one of the most popular types of this crime, your identity will be most likely to be stolen for the free stuff. Once you ve been a victim of credit identity theft, there are more chances that there will be unexplained accounts on your name, giving you a bad credit report and low credit scores. The sad thing about this is if you did not detect the problem early on, this can lead you to bankruptcy.
2. Where you live doesn t keep you safe from identity thieves. As your information can be publicly available for many reasons, anyone could just jot down your details and then assume your personality, no matter where you live. Some might think that living in a tightly knit community, where everybody knows everybody else, can help prevent the crime as it can easily be spotted, but this isn t always the case. Most credit identity theft perpetrators can easily charge for their transactions online.
3. Long standing cases of identity theft take a long time to resolve. This is due to the fact that if you do not monitor your records closely, it is more likely that you do not keep your receipts and record your financial transactions. It is also possible that you are quite lax in giving away your personal information or others may have had the chance to access your personal details. This is why governments stress on people to conduct personal identity theft check, so events like this can be prevented.
4. Children are not spared from identity theft crimes. Statistics show that more cases of the crime involve stolen Social Security numbers of minors because they do not need to use information like this yet. The bad thing is that once your child has been a victim, you may only know about it years later, when they already need to apply for credit of their own.
5. Identity theft happens worldwide, but it hits the more affluent countries even harder. And as America is a nation that relies heavily on credit, it is very likely that credit identity theft perpetrators target their operations in the country.
On a positive note, though, most victims say that detection of identity theft can be done in as quickly as three months as long as you monitor your finances and details. By watching your financial activities closely, you may be able to beat credit identity theft and its negative consequences.
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This article has been provided by http://www.free-credit-reports.com , where you can compare credit report and identity theft protection services with this comprehensive chart of all credit report and credit score service providers.
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