Identity Theft Impact

The effect of identity theft online was felt by nearly 8 million adults in the United States. This number of folks affected by identity Internet theft represents more than 3 of every hundreds adults in the U.S.

It also means there has been almost an 80 percent increase in just two years of those affected by identity Internet theft. This is an alarming increase, and according to statistics in law enforcement records the chances of identity Internet thieves being apprehended in one in 700. In the case of identity Internet theft, then, the effect for the perpetrators is most often positive.

While a lot of identity theft is through the Internet and hurts those who shop or do financial business online, there are still over half of identity theft U.S. residents being victimized by those that they know or have some sort or ongoing relationship with. The thieves could be members of the victim’s family, housemates, roommates, coworkers, neighbors and alleged friends. According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, identity theft is committed just as often off the Internet as on.

Identity theft is pervasive, hard to counteract and often devastating.

In identity theft, the perpetrator takes over the identity of a victim by stealing her or his private information – things of a critical nature such as driver’s license, social security number, bank account number, or the number of her or his credit cards. How this identity theft, Internet or otherwise has an effect on the victim is to potentially see the ruination of credit as the thief illegally obtains loans that he or she fails to pay or opening credit card or merchant accounts that once again he or she fails to pay.

To keep this identity theft fraud going as long as possible the thief also changes the billing addresses for these accounts so the victim is unaware of the unauthorized transactions as long as possible.

What these identity Internet and other thieves often do to affect this address change is to put in a phone change of address at the post office.

To counterbalance Internet identity theft, or to head it off before it even happens, it’s most important that you…

1. Give out your social security number sparingly
2. Never record your debit or ATM card pin numbers
3. Shred all important documents before you dispose of them
4. Once a year ask for and carefully study your credit report from all three major credit reporting bureaus – TransUnion, Experian and Equifax.