Imagine that, with the holidays are over, you are expecting life to basically return to normal for about another 11 months. The only possible holdover from the yuletide season will be, you suspect, your credit card bill. But you were careful, and kept your spending under control, so you are confident that the bill will be well under budget. Yet when the credit card statement arrives you are completely dumbfounded. Not only are the charges well in excess of your budget, they exceed your credit limit! A cursory glance reveals lots of unknown purchases intermingled with items that you actually bought. Slowly, the truth dawns on you: you've become a victim of identity theft.
Identity theft occurs when someone uses the personal identifying information of another person in order to commit a crime - usually a fraud of some sort. It has been hailed in the media as the fastest-growing crime in the country, with an estimated 60,000 people becoming victims every month. Small wonder, then, that scenarios like that above will probably become truth in fact for many people over the next month.
Identity theft activity tends to pick up over the course of the holiday season. Although it may be a reflection of thieves having their own shopping to do, it is probably more indicative of the fact that this is a time of year when we are not only utilizing our check books and charge cards more, but we are also distracted by the non-stop activity taking place around us. Simply put, identity thieves may not have to put in the same level of effort as they would at other times in order to get their hands on your information.
For criminals, the first page of the identity theft handbook is often to open up a line of credit in the victim's name. This is one of the simplest ways for them to get the identity theft ball rolling, and might explain why credit card fraud is the most pervasive form of identity theft. Moreover, most victims will not discover the crime immediately. In essence, the criminal uses a line of credit that the victim is completely oblivious to and probably won't discover until well after the crime is committed.
Simply put, identity theft is a wide-reaching and fast-spreading crime. Moreover, the nature of the crime itself often makes it difficult to discover. That being the case, most of us would be best served by taking proactive measures (such as monitoring your credit) before becoming victims rather than trying to recover after it happens.
Identity theft occurs when someone uses the personal identifying information of another person in order to commit a crime - usually a fraud of some sort. It has been hailed in the media as the fastest-growing crime in the country, with an estimated 60,000 people becoming victims every month. Small wonder, then, that scenarios like that above will probably become truth in fact for many people over the next month.
Identity theft activity tends to pick up over the course of the holiday season. Although it may be a reflection of thieves having their own shopping to do, it is probably more indicative of the fact that this is a time of year when we are not only utilizing our check books and charge cards more, but we are also distracted by the non-stop activity taking place around us. Simply put, identity thieves may not have to put in the same level of effort as they would at other times in order to get their hands on your information.
For criminals, the first page of the identity theft handbook is often to open up a line of credit in the victim's name. This is one of the simplest ways for them to get the identity theft ball rolling, and might explain why credit card fraud is the most pervasive form of identity theft. Moreover, most victims will not discover the crime immediately. In essence, the criminal uses a line of credit that the victim is completely oblivious to and probably won't discover until well after the crime is committed.
Simply put, identity theft is a wide-reaching and fast-spreading crime. Moreover, the nature of the crime itself often makes it difficult to discover. That being the case, most of us would be best served by taking proactive measures (such as monitoring your credit) before becoming victims rather than trying to recover after it happens.
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