What is identity theft ?
Posted on August 11, 2008
Identity theft is someone stealing your identity information like
- Name
- Age
- Date of Birth
- Birth place
- Mother’s maiden name
- Father’s name
- etc..
and use these details to commit
- Financial identity theft (using an other’s identity to obtain goods and services, for example Credit cards, car loans, or even mortgages)
- Criminal identity theft (posing as another when apprehended for a crime, this is very difficult to rectify because of difficulties with clearing your criminal record)
- Identity cloning (using an other’s information to assume his or her identity in daily life, this way the criminals can avoid being caught, by hiding using stolen id)
- Business/commercial identity theft (using an other’s business name to obtain credit, ruining the legitimate businesses chances of obtaining credit)
There are so many ways identities can be stolen, for example
- Dumpster diving (going through rubbish to obtains discarded credit cards, bank statements, discarded receipts etc)
- Publicly available (Through web sites etc, where your personal information is available for anyone. )
- CV (Most of your identity information can be obtained from your Curriculum Vitae, some people foolishly include very personal details like Mother’s maiden name, your passport number etc..)
- etc, there are so many ways for identities to be stolen….
But some people unknowingly give away their identity !. Or other third parties do it for them !!! The most amazing cases I’ve come across are
- Posting a full scan of the front and back page of your passport, on a free to access photo site !
- Some news papers (even national and international) including pictures of credit cards without blanking out numbers etc
- Giving away your bank account / credit card information over the phone in public places like, in trains, bank reception help desks etc….
If you even remotely suspect that your identity has been stolen, it’s always a good idea to check your credit report, which can be done for free from here
Reference
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