Identity Theft is a huge problem, as people steal all your personal information and then take out loans in your name, get credit cards and may even buy something very expensive and then disappear leaving you the bills. You look like a dead beat and your credit is torched and you spend countless hours trying to prove you did not buy those things or borrow the money. There have been people take out seconds on other peoples homes, take the cash and take off on some vacation hide-away. I sincerely hope they got flooded out by a Big Cat Five Hurricane like Wilma, if they did. It is very hard to keep all you information safe as the government makes much of it available to any one. There are property tax records, marriage licenses, drivers licenses, permits and all kinds of things. The government has disreputable people in it too, as there are crooked cops, regulators, bureaucrats and secretaries. Most major identity thefts are inside jobs. Where some one accidentally or unlawfully gives out a code to break into a company computers system or an employee of a company downloads a database and gives to some unscrupulous individuals for a cut of the action. There are hundreds of ways to lose your personal information, so it is best to understand the policies of those you do business with and make sure they are reputable. Likewise do not ever email back your personal information online. If the company is legitimate then they already have the information since you are already doing business with them. You see people will send you what looks like a legitimate email and then ask you to type in your information again due to some glitch in their computer system. They call it phishing and people fall for this all the time and it costs them dearly, be careful on the net with your credit card numbers and personal information. Think on this. |
