ID Theft

I discovered these statics as I began my research into identity theft. However, if you've ever study the field of statistics or heard the jokes about "statistics" and/or "statisticians" you'll want to take these with a grain of salt.

Still, these stats along with others, a personal experience with ID theft (I got lucky, it was mild) and a 3 hour meeting with Sgt. Bob Berardi of the Southern California High-Tech Task Force are what spurred me into creating this lens.

I hope they help give you the same kind of 'kick in the pants' they gave me and you'll begin taking the necessary action steps to protect yourself and your loved ones.

Roughly 10 million Americans have had their personal information stolen and misused in some way

26 Times More Likely To Be A Victim Of ID Theft Than A Violent Crime

85% of victims don't find out until denied for credit or employment, or get contacted by police, collection agencies

33% of victims had their info used for credit card fraud, 21% for phone & utilities fraud, 17% for bank fraud (checking, savings & EFT's), 11% for employment related fraud

1,826 Times More Likely Than To Be Murdered

21 Times More Likely Than To Have Your Home Burglarized

2 Times More Likely Than Being In an Auto Accident

13 Times More Likely Than Being Divorced

19 percent of consumers report that financial information, including a bank or credit card number, has been misused.

14 percent say they've had personal information such as a Social Security number or birth certificate taken.

Identity theft hits 1 in 4 U.S. households

Loss to businesses in the U.S. exceeds $50 billion annually due to identity theft

Identity theft victims spend 600 hours of their personal & work time and lose up to as much as $16,000 in lost wages & income in clearing their names

On average it takes victims 14-16 months to clear their name

One in six Americans (17 percent) say they've had financial information stolen (bank or credit card number)

Three in four consumers (75 percent) agree that they would take more steps to avoid being a victim of identity theft if they knew what to do.

Source: Federal Trade Commission, The Gallop Organization poll, Consumer Sentinel, Identity Theft Data Clearinghouse, Identity Theft Resource Center, Harris Interactive & Gartner

Albert Einstein once remarked that...
"Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them."

With that wisdom in mind we'll see how you can be a genius when it comes to protecting yourself and your family from this financially and emotionally draining crime.

The first decision you'll need to make is whether or not you want to be completely and solely responsible for protecting one of your most precious assets...your good name.

Are you the "Do-It-Yourself" (DIY) type? Or do you prefer to work with professionals when it comes to important matters?

Either way, you'll find the help you're looking for to assist you with the 3 D's of ID Theft...Deter It, Detect It, Defend Against It!

Personally, I've already got enough to worry about so, I enjoy the peace of mind that comes from never really worrying about ID theft any more. How 'bout you?

Imagine for a moment an identity thief got a hold of ALL your valuable personal information; name, address, social security number, etc.

Now, imagine the crook could do absolutely nothing with it...even with all your vital information at their fingertips, they can't use it to their benefit.

Well, you can stop imagining because it's possible to achieve that level of ID theft security...today! And for less than a subscription to your daily newspaper.

Quick Word to the Do-It-Yourself'ers:

If you decide to go the DIY route there's no way to guarantee you won't fall victim to identity theft, but there are clearly defined steps you can take to reduce your risk factors and hopefully minimize the damage done if your personal information is breached.

DIY'ers can skip the next few sections and just scroll down to the "Do-It-Yourself" Protection section for helpful "How-to" videos and a free ID Theft Recovery Kit download!

For those interested in professional protection that offer rock solid guarantees with NO fine print, we're going to examine the solutions that are available.

4 Categories of Identity Theft Solutions

The ID theft protection biz is taking off, but all the companies end up falling into one of 4 categories of solutions.

#1 - Prevention (Einstein's Choice)

#2 - Remediation/Restoration

#3 - Insurance

#4 - Monitoring

Narrowing down the choices from here is quick and simple.

First ask yourself, "What would Einstein do?"

He'd opt for prevention.

Well, you just 'thinned the herd' of available solutions by 75%.

Whew! What a load off.

Okay, okay...for those of you reading who aren't absolutely convinced, let me give you a quick run down on the 3 solution categories that just failed our "genius test".

Remediation/Restoration by definition has to occur AFTER you've already become a victim.

So, this one's self explanatory but you should know rates typically vary somewhere between $70 to $100/per hour and there's no reimbursement of your financial losses.

Insurance solves the "out-of-pockets" expenses up to a certain dollar amount and usually comes with an assistance program to help you contact creditors, write affidavits and file reports.

All of which is only necessary AFTER you're a victim. We're still missing the mark here.

And have you ever filed a claim with your car, home or health insurance company? BA-LECK!

Insurance premiums range between $25-$50/year per $15,000 of coverage.

And you're still left with the fun of repairing all the damage to your credit profile, etc.

Monitoring is typically offered by the major credit reporting bureaus; Equifax, Transunion and Experian. You may have been offered this service through your local bank or credit union but they're just sub-contacting through the bureaus.

The service can be summed up like this; "We'll notify you if we see anything 'unusual' or 'suspicious' come up on your credit report."

Once again, they can only 'notify' you AFTER something bad has already happened to your identity.

Worse yet, it's not an immediate notification

Not very genius-like.

Oh, and to get full coverage from all 3 bureaus you'll end up paying a cool $480/year. And they DO NOT help you fix the problems after they 'notify' you.

What a deal!

Financial loss recovery? Nope.

You'll have to forgive me if I sound particularly harsh toward the credit bureaus' services, but being in the mortgage business, we have to deal with them on a daily basis and it's not exactly a fun-filled day at the beach...but I digress. :-)

With that out of the way we'll move on and examine your best choices for being an identity theft protection genius.

Prevention!

Prevention boils down to 2 primary tactics; Fraud Alerts and Credit Freezes.

As with everything in life there are pros and cons to both these approaches. Let's take a closer look at each so you can make an informed decision about which will suit you best.

Fraud Alerts

Fraud Alerts are special notices placed on your credit profile telling businesses running your credit report that you're concerned about identity theft and they need to contact you directly (at the phone number you put into the fraud alert) to verify you're actually applying for credit.

The Pros:

Highly effective method of stopping thieves from opening or extending credit accounts in your name, including cell phones and utilities.

It also provides the greatest flexibility and ease of use for the high level of protection.

The Cons:

While it's very effective, it's not fool-proof. There's no guarantee you won't fall victim.

One study showed that 40% of Fraud Alerts are not set properly therefore offering no protection.

They're only good for 90 days and then have to be re-set.

Limits 'credit application' speed and convenience but the security more than makes up for it in my opinion.

Credit Freeze

A Credit Freeze will actually remove your credit report from the public databases (this is where businesses get your credit information) of the three major credit bureaus.

With this approach potential creditors cannot access your credit profile at all, unless you issue a temporary 'lift' of the freeze.

Pros

Extremely effective in stopping thieves from opening or extending credit in your name because you've completely removed access.

Cons

At the time of this writing (7/27/07) only 33 states allow credit freezes for all consumers. 5 other states only allow for victims of ID theft. And the remaining states do not offer it at all. For a detailed list of states allowing credit freezes click here

Pretty serious inconvenience. No more snap decisions about applying for credit. For instance, department stores, furniture stores, etc. that offer discounts or 0% interest or 6 months same as cash deals.

Ongoing expense. You're charged $10/per bureau to 'lift' the freeze. That's $30 every time you want to APPLY for credit.

Now you understand the different tactical approaches...

After conducting an extensive search for proactive and preventative solutions...

2 main players emerged as the top choices.

Deciding on the winner for you simply depends on which preventative 'tactic' you'd prefer to have enacted and guaranteed on your behalf.

I'll start with my personal winner, not only for myself and my family, but for our mortgage clients as well.

After a lot of consideration about the pros and cons between Fraud Alerts and Credit Freezes and more importantly, how I personally use and manage my credit, I opted for Fraud Alerts as my method of ID theft prevention.

It really comes down to this, if you want a guaranteed preventative solution, with flexibility, easier use of your own credit profile and no 'on-going' added expenses just to run your credit in the future, you'll want to sign up with a company called LifeLock.

They're the undisputed king in ID Theft Prevention utilizing Fraud Alerts as their primary weapon of defense.

Big name fans like Paul Harvey, Dr. Joy, Howard Stern, Dr. Laura, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, a former police chief and many others are using & endorsing them.

CEO, Todd Davis is so confident in their ability to protect against ID Theft he even publishes his own social security number right there on the website for everyone to see! (Watch the news video in the next section on it).

And they completely eliminate the biggest "cons" associated with Fraud Alerts!

They set your alerts for you and they ensure it's done properly.

They re-set your alerts every 90 days so you don't have to worry about it.

They also...

Make it fast & easy (sign up is a breeze)

Remove your name from junk mail lists

Remove your name from pre-approved credit card lists

Back everything up with a $1,000,000 (no fine print) guarantee!

AND BEST OF ALL IT'S CHEAP at only $10 a month.

But, I've made it even CHEAPER FOR YOU...

My company, MoneyNavigation Mortgage Planning Services, has entered into a strategic partnership with LifeLock allowing us to offer you a special 17% annual discount (Saving you a total of $21 off the standard monthly price)

To learn more about LifeLock and to take advantage of your special discount Click Here

If you've decided to go the 'credit freeze' route (and your state allows for it click here for a State by State list) as your prevention method, my recommendation is to look into a company called TrustedID

PLEASE NOTE: Even if you do not live in one of the States that allow credit freezing TrustedID may still be a viable option for you because they also offer a service called Lender DoubleCheck which I believe is powered by fraud alerts.

The company offers up to a $1,000,000 insurance coverage with their service to cover any out-of-pocket expenses in the unlikely event your identity is compromised while using their service.

An interesting additional free service they offer on their website is something they call Stolen ID Search.

This service allows you to input your social security number and credit card numbers and the system reveals whether or not you've been compromised by cross referencing them against their database of over 2.4 million compromised numbers.

Their Stolen ID Search service was even featured in a New York Times article. You can find a link to it on the home page of their site click here to explore it yourself.


Information hounds (like me) will get a kick out of their "Resource Center", "Blog" & "ID Theft Video Stories".

In addition to The New York Times they've also been featured in The Wall Street Journal, CNNMoney.com, ConsumerAffairs.com, Newsweek, Time Magazine and others.

Explore and decide for yourself whether it seems like the right fit for you to Protect Your Identity and Credit with TrustedID

Okay, rather than subject you to more of my writing style ;-) I've decided to go multimedia for you with this section.

Below you'll find links to several videos with "edge-of-your-seat excitement" dealing with the issue of identity theft...alright, I may have stretched the "excitement" factor of these videos but that doesn't detract from their importance.

Your credit, finances and freedom are on the line here. No, I'm not over exaggerating here...VICTIMS of ID Theft have actually ended up in jail because of the actions of a thief using the victim's identity.

If you're going to take the "Do-It-Yourself" route I strongly urge you to watch all of these videos, take good notes and bookmark this lens in your 'favorites'.

Some are merely informational while others are thorough "How-To's"

Watch How Easily a Chief of Police's Identity is Stolen

What is Identity Theft and What are the 2 Forms of it?

What Kind of Information Do They Steal?

How Do They Steal the Information?

Scams to Steal Your Information

How to Spot if You're Already a Victim

What To Do If You're a Victim: Step-By-Step

Do-It-Yourself Steps For Preventing Identity Theft

Stopping Crooks From "Phishing" Your Information Out of You

The Top 5 Ways Teens Compromise Their Identity's Online

Identity Theft Recovery Kit w/ Affidavit

Our ID Theft Recovery Kit was written with the help of an attorney specializing in credit and identity theft services. It's a step-by-step guide.

Click Here to Get Your Free ID Theft Recovery Kit