Introduction
 Your wallet is missing. Thousands of dollars have been charged to your credit cards, your checking account is empty, and loans you never took out appear on your credit report. What happened? You’ve been a victim of identity theft – an increasingly common and inventive crime.
Identity theft occurs when someone uses your personal information to commit fraud or other crimes. It may also involve computer fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, and financial institution fraud.
Fortunately, there are preventative measures you can take to substantially reduce the chance of identity theft occurring, as well as steps to recover from any damage if you are a victim.
Common Practices
Thieves use a variety of illegal techniques to obtain identity information. They may:
- Take mail from a mailbox
- Divert mail to another location by filling out a change of address form
- Go through trash to find identification and financial documents
- Access credit reports by posing as landlords or employers
- Hack into personal computers
- Pose as legitimate companies or government agencies to request personal information via email (called phishing)
- Steal hard copy or electronic files from your workplace
- Stand close
to you at the ATM to learn your Personal Identification Number
- Work at restaurants,
gas stations, or other businesses to steal money or information
from credit/ATM/debit cards (called skimming)
Once
identity thieves have your personal information, they may
use it to:
- Charge on
existing credit accounts
- Open
new credit accounts in your name
- Use existing
or open new checking accounts in your name and write bad checks
- Establish
phone or wireless service in your name
- Use
your debit cards or counterfeit checks to drain your checking
account
- Take
out loans to buy cars and other big ticket items
Identity
Theft Risk Assessment
How
secure is your personal information against identity theft? To
find out, complete our quick questionnaire.
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