Avoiding Identity Theft | The Communication Blog

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Avoiding Identity Theft

By Josie Lynn


Identity theft doesn't usually mean someone steals one's identity and then goes off to a faraway place and lives her/his life impersonating and running up bills in its name. The practical meaning of identity theft is somebody that uses another person's name, credit card or credit rating. Sometimes list of the bills is so long. Taking out house mortgages under somebody else's name and then flipping the house is also consider a case of identity thieves.

The linking between the data breach and identity theft is not easy to identify as the person does not get known by the theft of his or her identity and how their personal information are obtained by the others. There are different types of identity theft. Criminal Identity theft (Posing as another person when apprehended for a crime). Financial Identity theft (using another person's identity to obtain his or her credit and wealth). Identity cloning (Assuming another person's daily life). Medical Identity theft (Assuming medical care and drugs of another person). Child Identity theft (Using social security of a minor by stealing that identity).

Identity cloning identity theft is when the similar impersonation takes place like criminal identity threat but the variation lies in the fact that the victim may not come to know about this for an indefinite span of time. Cloning is mostly done to cover up identity and not perform any other heinous crime. Illegal immigrants may find this way the most suitable for survival.

In these days one's social security number is very easy to achieve. All a crook needs is an account with an information broker online and one's name and address. Then, give victim's social security number and a little additional information like DOB. Now all fields are set for identity theft. The thief can set up all kinds of charge accounts in victim's name, arranging to have the bills sent to a phony address so that it will take longer to catch on to what's happening.

One of the most common forms of identity theft is medical identity theft. It involves snatching away of insurance details and launching false claims. The medical officers possessing inappropriate information of such scrupulous clients can land themselves in serious trouble. Child identity theft is when the social security numbers of the children are best bets for the imposter as there are no details of the children present and the crime goes undetected for years until the child grows up.




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