The Many Faces of Identity Theft

What Does This Mean To You?

Obviously you can shred all your personal information, but you cannot control or trust what businesses, institutions or their employees will do with your confidential information.

You can't prevent a hack attack at TJMax where 45.7 million debit/credit records were hacked or at Monster.com where 1.6 million million personal records were stolen in August 2007 only to be hacked again right before Thanksgiving 2007.   

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  What if someone got a job using your identity, you file a tax return not knowing about the other income; do you think IRS would want to talk with you about tax fraud?
• What if you were denied Social Security benefits because someone using your identity was already receiving benefits?
• What if someone used your medical insurance for health care and now their medical data, such as their blood type, is now on your medical records?

These particular types of Identity Theft - Medical Identity Theft, Criminal Identity Theft, and Data Identity Theft - will never be picked up through Credit Monitoring Services.

You are at risk because you don't know what people are going to do with your information, whether it's a state, federal, or corporate employee.  What about the computers you;ve disposed of?  Did you really wipe the hard drive clean or just delete programs and files that could easily be reconstructed with all your personal information?   

All right.  How do you protect yourself?  Credit Monitoring and credit freezes are somewhat helpful at attacking that one-third of the iceberg called Identity Theft, BUT....

1.  Not all creditors participate in the credit reporting process because they aren't members of the credit bureau.  Therefore, the credit being issued may never hit your credit report. 

2.  It usually takes about 45 to 60 days to get information on file to the credit reporting companies.  In that period of time, someone can do immeasurable damage to your credit.  

3.  Most Credit Reporting Monitoring services do not monitor the credit of children.  Who is most vulnerable to having their identities stolen knowing  very few parents would ever think of checking their child's credit?     

4.  Credit Monitoring does not monitor  for signs of criminal activity of Identity Fraud on your behalf. 

What if you were stopped in your car tomorrow and arrested because  someone stole your identity, saying they were you when arrested for a DUI,  or maybe the crime is more severe with a really high bail?  Would you be surprised to have a friend call you and say they were sorry you had to file bankruptcy? Circumstances such as this are known as Identity Fraud.

               "Identity Fraud Has Not Hit Its Full Stride Yet. " 

So what's the answer?  Identity Monitoring is what we all need to sleep better at night, knowing our assets, credit, reputation, and identities are covered.  With Identity Monitoring, your name and social security number are run every single night against a vast number of databases around the country looking for suspicious activities through Credit Card aggregators, DMV records, Public Databases, civil and criminal databases, Medical databases, and non-credit related databases.  An Identity Monitoring service is looking for any hint of Identity Fraud. 

With Identity Monitoring, if your identifying information shows up anywhere, you are notified immediately.  Therefore, you have a much better chance to catch a thief in the early stages of the crime which will reduce the risk of damages to you, your credit, your assets, and your reputation.  An Identity Monitoring company works with law enforcement to give them the evidence they need to make arrests of the criminal trying to impersonate you, not arrest you.

These infuriating, time-consuming and embarrassing scenarios can be kept to a minimum with early detection and alert.  

Being proactive and recognizing that Identity Monitoring and  Credit Report Monitoring are two different animals is the first step toward securing your lifestyle, your reputation, and your sanity.  The second step is to see what we suggest in addition to Identity Monitoring.