Five Areas of Identity Theft

When you think of Identity Theft, what is the first thing you think of? Someone has hacked into your online bank account, is using your ATM or credit card illegally.  Your financial resources are being drained. Am I right? Typically, this is what we think of when we are considering Identity Theft, the fastest growing crime in America today, but it is so much more than this.

Financial Identity Theft happens ONLY 26% of the time. I say ONLY because we tend to think of it more like 90-95% of the time. This leaves the majority (74%) of ID Theft occurring in other ways. Do you know what these ways are? Do you have protection in place if you become a victim?

Five Areas of Identity Theft

1. Driver's License Identity - If teens can make fake ID cards, don't you think it would be easy to make a fake driver's license too. Having your (or a fake) Social Security card along with a birth certificate and they can get a driver's license "legally". They commit a crime or traffic violation and their item of identification is YOUR driver's license. Who gets the blame for the crime? Whose record will it go on?

2. Social Security Identity - For you to be a victim here, your Social Security card doesn't have to be stolen. The criminal can just be using your number. They can go get a 1099 job (independent contractor), cash the paychecks and not pay any taxes on their earnings. Who will the IRS be coming after to collect the taxes?

3. Medical Identity - The criminal can get health care on your insurance. A woman had her pocket book stolen. She cancelled all her credit cards and thought she was alright. Two months later, her daughter needed to go to the hospital. The hospital wouldn't admit her because her mom's insurance had been cancelled. She forgot to notify her insurance company that her health insurance card had been stolen. The thief had taken the stolen health insurance card to get an AIDS test. The test came back positive and her insurance was cancelled. What kind of headache and hassle did she go through to have her insurance restored?

4. Character or Criminal Identity - This could be the longest lasting and most hurtful theft of all. Money and material things can be replaced, but our character or name can't be so easily replaced. A good name is to be treasured more than riches. If you are accused of something, aren't you associated with that wrongdoing by people, sometimes for years to come, whether you were guilty or not? Isn't that human nature? If a criminal robs a bank, rapes, pillages, steals or whatever type crime they commit, who will get the blame if the criminal has YOUR identification and is let out on bail.  Can you see YOUR picture in the paper with an article describing your alleged criminal activity?

5. Financial Identity - This is the type of crime we most associate with ID Theft. Our bank account is tapped into or our ATM or credit cards are used without our permission. Banks have lost billions of dollars in this area. They have legislation in place to protect them. When these laws are enacted, the customer has a certain period of time to notify their financial institution of the crime. If they don't, the customer is then liable. See the need for having your accounts closely monitored?

Do you have a plan in place to protect you and your family against the Five Areas of Identity Theft? Do you know that a victim of Identity Theft spends an average of 600 hours and hundreds of dollars to restore their name and credit? Would you have the time to spend on this? Would you know how to deal with the banks, affidavits, police reports, credit repositories etc?

Would you like to be protected by the leading risk management company in the world? This company has been used by the Kuwaiti Government to track down Saddam Hussein's bank accounts, help the US Government unravel Enron and the FBI in it's casework. As a member, if you become a victim of Identity Theft, you will be assigned a licensed investigator to do most of the work for you.  Someone who will stick with you until you get your good name and credit restored.

How can you get these benefits? Want more information? Don't wait until it happens to you --- enroll and get peace of mind today.  See the link in my bio box below.