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Identity Theft: A crime too personal
It
might happen to you too. You get a call one fine day from a credit
collection agency, demanding you to pay off all your dues amounting to
huge bucks. Wait a minute; I don’t have a credit card! What the hell?
And then, you realize that it’s too late. Someone used your name and
credentials, applied for a credit card and then splurged on thousands of
dollars in shopping. And mind you, credit card misuse is just one way of
what is termed as Identity Theft. There are other ways like hijacking a
person’s email account, stealing passwords or personal information and
misusing them and much more.
So what’s identity theft all about?
Identity theft in short is a crime — it might also amount to cyber crime
or hacking. In this type of crime, your personal information is
wrongfully obtained and used in some way, which involves fraud or
deception, typically for economic gain. Unlike your fingerprints, which
are unique to you and cannot be given to someone else for their use,
your personal data —especially your Social Security number, your bank
account or credit card number, your telephone calling card number, email
account password, online shopping password and other valuable
identifying data can be used, if they fall into the wrong hands, to
personally profit at your expense.
There have been cases in the past where huge amounts of money were
transferred from one bank account to another account, just because the
person committing this crime happened to be the victim’s relative and
came to know about the online banking password of the victim. So you
see, it’s not just people who don’t know you committing crimes; even
your own brother would do that — if he had an urgent need for money.
Types of Identity Theft
Identity theft can enter into many areas of our lives. It involves any
instance where a person uses someone else's identification documents or
other identifiers in order to impersonate that person for whatever
reason. According to a survey conducted by the Federal Trade Commission,
about 10 million people in the United States found out they were victims
of identity theft in 2002. So, if it’s 10 million in the US alone, think
about the rest of the world.
Identity Theft doesn’t need the criminal to be present near you all the
time. It might happen through Internet too. The criminal might just send
you an email, that looks like a genuine message from your bank asking
you to submit your credit card number, ATM card pin number, online
banking password, etc. - for “security” reasons. And you might
unsuspectingly enter all the credentials, click on submit button and the
website thanks you for entering all this information. But then, did you
ever think even once, before submitting your credentials - why would
your bank ask for your password, when it would already be present in
their records. But, then it’s too late, since the criminal would now
impersonate you and go on a shopping spree. He might even use your
credit card number to subscribe himself to online erotica or
pornographic websites. The crime he just committed is called Phishing.
Other type of Identity Theft includes bank fraud, credit card fraud,
computer and telecommunications fraud, social program fraud, tax refund
fraud, mail fraud, and several more.
How does it happen?
As I said earlier, it’s not at all necessary for the criminal to be
present near you to steal your personal information. In public places,
for example, criminals may engage in shoulder surfing—watching you from
a nearby location as you punch in your telephone calling card number or
credit card number or listen in on your conversation if you give your
credit-card number over the telephone to a hotel or rental car company.
Shoulder surfing might also allow people to view your email message, in
case you happen to be surfing the Net in a public place. Even the area
near your home or office may not be secure. Some criminals might just go
through your garbage cans or trash bin, to obtain copies of your checks,
credit card or bank statements that you might have just "thrown" into
the garbage can.
Just one wrong mouse click, while you are hooked up to the Net, might
also land you in trouble. The criminal might just spam you with
unsolicited email that contains an attachment - perhaps Pamela
Anderson's picture. You might just click over the attachment in
excitement and then nothing happens on the screen. You delete the mail
thinking that the file must have been corrupted. But little did you
realize that the "picture" was actually a key logger or a Trojan in
disguise. A key logger is a simple program that runs in the background,
recording every keystroke of yours and then makes it accessible to the
criminal, when you log onto the Internet. A Trojan on the other hand
does more - it might just allow the criminal to take over your PC
remotely, allowing the criminal to scan through your hard drives for
personal information.
Other ways might include false applications for loans and credit cards,
fraudulent withdrawals from bank accounts, fraudulent use of telephone
calling cards, or obtaining other goods or privileges - which the
criminal might be denied if he were to use his real name.
This article is the property of
www.bestcreditcardsonline.com,
which has been offering credit cards services since 2002.
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