Over the past five years the rise of identity theft has been astronomical. It has been consistently rising every year for the past 5 years and it has literally affected millions of people in America.

The rise of identity theft can also be attributed as a bad side effect of the internet. Due to the fact that as long as you have correct information anyone can use your account to buy products, transfer/pay accounts and access online credit information.

This has become a serious problem and a lot of people have been badly affected by it. Some people still cannot get new credit lines since they are being questioned about their identities. Other people lost their jobs and credibility due to felonies charged against their names.

Most of these individuals have been questioned by the police and are in constant contact with the authorities to clear their name. Most of them are innocent, but due to the sensitivity of the crimes and financial setbacks, most of them are kept for questioning.

Some even until two years and the damage to their lives has been immense.

In 2006 a census survey consisting of 44 questions has been conducted to know how identity theft has affected their lives. It also surveyed how identity theft happened and its diverse effects on people.

According to the survey, the sources of stolen information between 2003 and 2006 came from information theft via the internet (phising), lost and stolen wallets, and the workplace and home/car robberies.

Another shocking part that contributes to the rise of identity theft is that most of the respondent is victimized by people who have access to their information these include family, friends and colleagues.

Most of the felons who victimized people have committed other crimes, experiencing financial problems and addictions. These people are the ones desperate enough to steal personal information and risk getting caught using them.

Two-thirds of the 2006 respondents also noted that their information has been used to open new credit lines, 29% for new cable/utility and another 27% reported that the felon made charges to the victim’s existing credit card accounts.

The actual Costs to the Victims averaged around $1,884 dollars for out-of-pocket expense for travel, childcare, postage, purchasing police and court records and childcare

The biggest problem for these people though is the inability to clear negative records. They cannot be cleared to get credit and other essential needs due to the fact that their negative information remains on their report.

Most of the reasons stated that Credit Reporting Agencies (CRAs) kept putting inaccurate information back on the report (43%), credit agencies refuse to remove it (39%) and fraud alerts were ignored (30%).

It should be noted that there was a sharp increase in victims (24%) who stated that they were unable to get a police report, more than doubling from 2004’s study.

This figure is still increasing each year and this is why we must be more vigilant in protecting our identities by learning about identity theft prevention and consistently checking our credit and identity reports and informing the authorities about any kind of odd discrepancy in our records. 

Protect your identity from thieves with LifeLock identity theft protection service.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 14th, 2007 at 9:51 am and is filed under Credit Card Theft and Fraud, Identity Theft, Identity Theft Protection, Identity Theft Statistics, Internet Scams, LifeLock, LifeLock Promo Code. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.