The Urban Layers Project

After Hurricane Wilma struck Ft. Lauderdale in 2005, the full county went offline. No power, no computer. No computer, no Internet. You couldn't purchase gas because the electrical pumps were out. You could only purchase what grocery stores were still on the shelf if you had cash. Recognition and debit entry card game were rendered useless.Things always travel incorrect at the worst possible time.

At the worst possible moment, hackers struck my PayPal account, overdrew my affiliated depository financial institution business relationship and recognition card, and left me penniless when I was most vulnerable.

As more than than than and more criminals and cons go Internet savvy, personal personal personal identity larceny is now the fastest growth law-breaking in the U.S.

Identity larceny falls into 4 categories:

-financial (stealing commodity and services)

-criminal (fake identity when arrested)

-cloning (pretending to be person else)

-business (using another's business to obtain credit)

We mostly believe of identity larceny when a alien utilizes our recognition to obtain commodity and services, but the others can be even more devastating. Try applying for a occupation after person gave your personal identity when they were convicted and captive for a felony.

Identity Larceny Prevention:

1.don't be free and easy with your Sociable Security number

2.don't publish your SSN on checks

3.don't transport clean bank bank checks or recognition card game you don't necessitate - you may not lose them when they have got been stolen

4.be especially careful about giving your SSN over the telephone or online

5.don't throw away official authorities letters or recognition card statements without shredding

6.secure your mail with a locking letter box if necessary

7.sign new recognition card game as soon as you have them

8.do not go forth recognition card gross behind at restaurants, gas stations, or stores

9.choose tough-to-figure-out logins, passwords, and pin numbers

10.use different watchwords for different accounts

11.change your pin Numbers and watchwords every 90 days

12. make not transport your pin Numbers in your billfold or purse

13. alteration the watchwords often for services like PayPal which are linked to your depository financial institution business relationship and recognition cards

14. put option your telephone Numbers on the national Do-Not-Call Register (1-888-382-1222 )

15. don't give your telephone figure to those who don't necessitate it (stores - pay attention)

16. make a Google hunt for your ain name and SSN to see what you can happen out about yourself

17. take online sellers carefully - Google before buying with a recognition card - expression for a unafraid land site button

18. maintain an oculus out for shoulder surfboarders in public transactions

19. be wary of skimmers wherever your recognition card is out of your sight (restaurants)

20. be careful with data file sharing software system - it can give hackers entree to your computer

21. bounds the amount of personal information you divulge on societal networking sites

22. maintain a stopping point oculus on laptop computers and pollex thrusts that incorporate personal information

23. reappraisal your monthly depository financial institution and recognition card statements carefully, or bank check more often online

24. reappraisal your recognition study at least once a twelvemonth for leery activity or inquiries

25. maintain a maestro record in a safe topographic point with business relationship Numbers and telephone Numbers should your recognition card game be stolen

Identity Larceny Recovery:

If your personal information have got got got been subject to topographic point theft, enactment immediately.

1.if your card game or Idaho were physically stolen, data file a police force report

2.call the large 3 recognition bureaus, place a fraud qui vive on your recognition cards, and obtain a free recognition report

3.close any depository financial institution business relationships and recognition card game you believe have been used by personal personal identity thieves

4.dispute any complaints or bank checks or backdowns you have not authorized

5.contact DMV for a new drivers' licence and figure if yours have been compromised

6.ask for a missive from each business relationship resolving the difference and collateral that the identity larceny business relationships have been closed

After the Hurricane Wilma hack, it took hebdomads to acquire PayPal to change by reversal all the complaints and pursuit down the fraud. The paperwork at the depository financial institution seemed endless. Citibank canceled the old recognition card and sent the new 1 out in record time.

U.S. Government statistics gauge it takes about 600 hours and $1,200 to counter personal identity larceny and reconstruct your good name and credit.

Prevention beats out remedy every time.

Identity larceny is all too common this twenty-four hours in age. It looks like the job is growing to new extremes. As a major aspect of personal identity theft, recognition card fraud is also largely preventable by taking basic safeguards and using good fiscal common sense. Read on for a few of the most effectual ways to avoid fraud completely.

Keep Your Digits to Yourself

Don't allow anyone borrow your recognition card or have got entree to your card number. A big amount of recognition card fraud haps simply as a consequence of not paying stopping point enough attending to who is doing what with your card. Keep checks on who have your card and for how long. For example, most of the clip at retail supplies and even at eating houses you can see what's going on with your card. If at all possible, ticker to do certain no 1 is "mishandling" your recognition while processing it.

Destroy Old Receipts

Even though it is now a law in many topographic points that dealing gross must not expose any more than than the last few figures of your figure as portion of the black and white out, that's really no warrant that your personal and recognition card information is not still there. Brand certain none of the recognition gross are left behind for the adjacent individual to see. It's outdo to destruct old gross by shredding them once they're no longer needed.

Shred Recognition Card Applications

Think about how many recognition card applications you have by mail in the course of study of a calendar month or so. Each and every 1 of these is practically an invitation for fraudsters to take advantage. They can acquire them right out of your letter box or even the rubbish and fill up them out to obtain their ain under your name in no clip at all. To cut down your opportunities of becoming a victim, bank check your mail as soon as possible every twenty-four hours and be certain to scintilla all unwanted applications before discarding them.

Only Make Business with Secure Websites

The web have a repute for being kind of the Wild Occident when it come ups to recognition cards. The perceptual experience is that information is stolen routinely and personal identity thieves are abundant. While it's always better to be safe than sorry, this impression of online lawlessness is largely a myocardial infarctions perception. In fact, when doing concern with reputable concerns online, your fiscal information is probably even safer than it would be in a typical offline transaction. Just do certain the connexion is unafraid (look for the padlock logotype in your browser) and that you completely trust the company you're paying.

Review Your Statement

Often considered a last vacation spot when taking stairway to avoid recognition fraud, reviewing your business relationship statement line by line is also a surefire manner to catch any abuse of your card before it's too late. Simply by coverage any abuse to your card issuing bank, most liability is averted right then and there. On the other hand, choosing to just pay the measure without looking at the complaints listed is a great manner to be an in progress victim of recognition card fraud.

Knowing how to avoid recognition card fraud is mostly accomplished by being aware of how fraudsters pattern their trade, but even more than so, by taking easy, basic stairway to protect your identity. Don't let yourself to be a victim!

With personal identity larceny on a continued progress upward and noted as the figure 1 White neckband law-breaking in United States today a popular option is for consumers to close down (lock) entree to their recognition reports. This do it nearly impossible for some criminal purpose to malodor fiscal mayhem on an people well being and the procedure is known as a security freezing or recognition lock.

As of the first of November in 2007, all three recognition coverage federal agencies gave consumers in United States the ability to restrict entree to their individual recognition reports. Of course of study unless you are an existent victim of personal identity theft, the procedure is not actually free in most states. To set a freezing on your recognition study as a simple proactive measurement to avoid criminal larceny of your information; costs in most states and fees very widely. One would have got to travel to each of the three recognition bureau's web land sites for specific instruction manual and individual state fees. Additionally, to implement a freezing completely, the procedure to freezing your recognition study have got to be done at each agency: all of whom have assorted methodologies.

A recognition freeze makes supply significant personal identity larceny protection however, it is not without loopholes. It can not halt non-credit-related forms of Idaho theft, such as as the creative activity of a reduplicate driver's licence or criminal personal identity larceny (when a suspect gives your name to patrol when booked for a crime). It also won't halt an illegal immigrant or undocumented worker from using your Sociable Security Number to obtain employment.

Additionally, it won't halt every company from accessing your recognition report. New creditors are largely blocked out, yet still existing loaners i.e. your current recognition card company (for example) can still see your study and offering you new recognition cards. Also, aggregation federal federal federal agencies acting on behalf of these companies with your current account(s), state or local agencies that includes law enforcement, kid support agencies, trial tribunals pursuant to a warrant or subpoena, recognition monitoring companies and companies that sell recognition studies to consumers are still feasible accesses.

It also won't halt those pre-approved credit card offers. The bureaus can still give your name and computer address to recognition card companies. Of course, you can halt those mailings by making a simple phone call to 1-888-5OPTOUT or by visiting http://optoutprescreen.com.

Putting a freezing in topographic point necessitates some clip consuming paperwork like sending certified letters. And it intends keeping path of freezing and subsequent lifts of an imposed freeze. As declared earlier, it makes no good to freeze one or two reports. If you desire existent personal identity larceny protection, you'll have got to travel through the movement and demands to freeze all three recognition agencies. If you desire to acquire a new recognition card, you'll have got to raise at least one federal agencies recognition study freeze. To set about a major investing such as as purchasing a new home, you'll most likely have got got to raise all three recognition federal agency freezings then; bend around and make certain they are frozen again to safeguard your personal personal personal identity after the purchase is closed.

Gail Hillebrand, Consumers Union recognition agency expert, compares freezing fees to paying for coverage and declared "If you are the individual in the family who will have to unknot an identity larceny after it happens, then you probably believe $10 a dad is a good deal." Additionally, "Consumers who are already paying for $10-per-month recognition monitoring services should call off and pay for security freezings instead." she concluded.

Despite the clip ingestion and varying requirements, a recognition freezing is likely the most optimal thing you can do to halt most identity larceny before it lurks its exacerbating head. Think of it like the mark you put in your window that denotes the premiss is protected by an dismay system. Yes, the place can still be broken into but, many thieves who see an dismay would travel on to another target. Identity thieves who come up upon a security freezing when trying to acquire services in your name such as as recognition card game or loans are just as likely to travel onto the adjacent Sociable Security number.

Only the individual tin make up one's mind what is best for their ain circumstances. My only input signal would be with personal personal identity larceny on the rampage, some sort of proactive measurement is warranted to lesson opportunities of identity theft.

When I first co-founded a concern many old age ago, we did not pass much clip thought about security. We were too busy trying to acquire everything else done. This changed when we raised money from venture rugged individualists who insisted that our security be increased to protect their investment.

In general, a few tips for reducing threats:

Check out your employees before you engage them, bank bank check mentions and make a background check. Like most preventive measures, it is less expensive than dealing with the consequences, but it makes take time.

Limit entree that employees have got to information and to your server. If your waiter room is locked, but the individual in complaint of the stands-in maintains the cardinal in his desk in his cell - your waiter is not secure! If your hour individual have got entree to all the digital employee files, but maintains his or her watchword taped to the side of the computer, that information is not secure.

Require that your employees utilize strong watchwords and changed them regularly. This volition cause much grousing, but it's your concern and their jobs, so they will have to dwell with it.

Backup your information regularly. You should back up your information daily. Every hebdomad you should have got a hebdomad end stand-in that is taken off land site and stored. Annually backup your information and maintain it in a safe sedimentation box or with your attorney.

Have virus protection software system system and digital invasion sensing software installed and reviewed regularly. If you outsource your IT, the company providing these services should be able to supply this for you.

Lock your doors, even during concern hours.This is why Home Terminal sells those radio door bells. They are cheap. I am always astonied when I can walk into a concern with no receptionist and swan the hallways freely.

Get security cameras. This is both security for your concern and for your employees.

Assign one of your senior direction as security officer. This individual is in complaint of apprehension possible menaces and determining the best prevention. He or she should also have preparation in what to make in lawsuit of an intrusion, digital or otherwise.

Another country of security is internal fraud, specifically employees stealing from you. As the security military officer of one former company, I was required to take a social class on internal fraud. The features of the wrongdoer tended to be (1) male, (2) in his 20s, (3) college educated, and (4) had never committed a law-breaking before. Not to state that a 50 twelvemonth old female, high school drop-out criminal volition not perpetrate the crime, but statistically those were the features that came up most often.

Usually what haps is the culprit is in a bind, can't do a auto payment, rent, doctor's bill, and he begins with just "borrowing" money or points to pawn from the company. He have got got full purposes of "paying it back." But the ground he got stuck in the first topographic point still exists, so he have to steal more than to cover up the first crime, and on and on it goes.

To forestall this type of fraud, have strong accounting policies and procedures. Rich Person gross bank checks come up to a polonium Box. Rich Person a different individual mark the bank checks than the 1 who makes them. Let only one individual to make the ordering for the company and maintain an stock list of what each employee has. For instance, memory lodges vanish really easily. Yes, an occasional 1 acquires lost, but some 1 who loses them constantly may have got got a problem.

Ask your comptroller for aid is creating these policies and processes and have your books audited or reviewed at least annually.

Although it is possible to travel overboard on security, I cognize very few companies that actually make and most don't even come up close to basic security. Brand certain your company is not one that acquires caught saying "but she seemed so trustworthy, I can't believe that she stole from us."

Published on: December 12th, 2007 10:26pm by:

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(OPENPRESS) Dec. 12, 2007 -- S. Grafton, ma – Daniel Bresnahan said he became an independent selling representative for the "Freedom Team" of PrePaid Legal, Inc. to assist people avoid personal identity larceny problems, and trade with the many legal issues that consequence people every day. "The news is filled with awful narratives about guiltless people who have got had their lives destroyed by personal identity theft. The norm individual makes not cognize how to manage legal problems, and usually the cost of a lawyer finds whether we are able to have justice. My desire is to acquire involved and assist people acquire the justness they deserve," said Bresnahan. The norm individual believes that aid from an lawyer is financially out of reach, so when something travels incorrect many shrug their shoulders, accept their fortune and travel on. When a landlord makes not repair things, when an coverage company makes not pay, or when any figure of things travel wrong, most people make not name a lawyer out of fearfulness of the cost, according to Bresnahan. "First Iodine was attracted to the personal identity larceny protection, then I learned how I can have got a complete legal protection program for my family. I realized that most people necessitate this, but make not cognize it exists, so I decided to go an independent selling rep so I can construct a concern offering this enormous programme to others," said Bresnahan. "While there are no peculiar accomplishments or former preparation necessary, self-starters World Health Organization have got got a desire to assist people be given to have more than success with the company," said Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc. chief executive officer Harland Stonecipher. "As a company, we're committed to doing all we can to educate and railroad train our gross sales force." "I believe the programme is attracting the attending of the public because it turns to the demands most people have got for legal aid in their day-to-day lives," said Bresnahan. Bresnahan supplies further information on a web land site at "We work together as a squad to assist each other and to assist many more than people in communities all across the nation. We supply aid to each new selling representative acquire involved without and former experience. We have got a very simple concern theoretical account that anyone can easily implement the first twenty-four hours they begin," explained Bresnahan. About the PrePaid Legal Freedom Team:
A grouping of independent selling representatives with PrePaid Legal, Inc. have got got joined together in an attempt to assist educate and inform more than Americans on how easy it is to protect against personal identity larceny and to have legal protection for life's many challenges. The grouping welcomes new members. Press Contact:
David M. Bresnahan
801-804-5386 Press release services provided by http://www.ThatPRGuy.com

###Professional Free Press Release News Wire

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Many people make not recognize that there are different types of personal identity theft. There are indeed respective ways in which the personal identity stealer can take advantage of your personal information, while leaving you to cover with the repercussions. Here's what you necessitate to cognize about the 5 types of personal personal identity theft.

The type of identity larceny you are probably most familiar with is Financial Identity Theft. It is when the stealer utilizes your information to put up fiscal business relationships in your name without your permission or knowledge. The stealer may obtain recognition cards, loans, merchandise, homes, vehicles, holidays and more, all in your name. Financial personal personal identity larceny can definitely be you one thousands of dollars in debt, not to advert the conscientious procedure of glade your name and credit.

Another type of identity larceny is Checkup Identity Larceny wherein the stealer utilizes your information to obtain wellness and other medical benefits and services. Being a victim of medical personal identity larceny can ensue to deceitful charge and having inaccurate medical files. Your ability to acquire a wellness and life coverage may also be affected. Imagine the incubus of having an existent medical exigency and having your insurance company refusing to cover the measures as records demo you've already had the process done or you've depleted your coverage coverage.

An personal identity stealer can not only go forth you with dozens of debt, but go forth you with a criminal record as well. With Criminal Identity Theft, the thieves utilize your information to obtain employment, to perpetrate or distance themselves from crimes, or supply your information when questioned by law enforcement. Repercussions can run from unearned tickets to outstanding apprehension warrants and even impermanent imprisonment. Victims can also be fired from their occupations owed to an "undisclosed conviction".

An personal personal identity stealer can also utilize your identity to get a "new life". Basically, the stealer openly dwells and plant as you. This type of personal identity larceny is called Fictional Character Identity Larceny or Identity Cloning. Using your name, the stealer can accumulate taxation refunds and have got your benefits, obtain professional licenses, be married, have children or register for bankruptcy. The thieves are usually criminals, fugitives, illegal aliens, or people with mediocre work or fiscal history.

Identity larceny can not only be annihilating to people but to concerns as well especially in lawsuits wherein the business' recognition and the owner's recognition are one in the same. With Commercial Identity Larceny wherein felons acquire recognition by charging it to another business' name, concern trading operations may be severely affected owed to a loan being denied or called early or if involvement rates on cardinal recognition business relationships are increased owed to a cosmopolitan default cause.

Truly, an consciousness of these different types of personal identity larceny is helpful in protecting ourselves from becoming a victim of the crime. Given that personal identity larceny have now go more than common, it's definitely wise to cognize what we are up against in order to take the appropriate preventative measures.

If you believe you are a victim of personal identity fraud it is vitally of import that you take contiguous stairway to get repairing the harm that have been done. The harm may be more than than you believe it is, depending on the length of clip that person have had your personal personal identity and been using it.

First, you necessitate to be aware of the marks that you may be a victim of identity fraud. Some of the cardinal marks are:

• Irregularities on your recognition study including applications for recognition that you didn't make or many applications in a short clip period of time.
• Odd complaints on your recognition card that you make not retrieve making.
• Odd backdowns on your checking business relationship or big amounts that you make not retrieve making.
• New recognition card game being sent to your mailing computer address that you did not use for.
• Statements from Banks that you do not cover with.
• Emails or postal mail from sellers that you've not dealt with.

If you believe you may be the victim of personal identity fraud you should immediately get coverage your suspicions. You should register studies with:

• Your depository fiscal institution and any financial establishments you cover with
• Your recognition card companies
• Your public utility companies (phone, electric, water, gas, cable)
• Your local police
• The Federal Soldier Trade Commission
• The three national recognition bureaus fraud sections (addresses and telephone Numbers are listed below)

Equifax

polonium Box 740241

Atlanta, GA

30374-0241

1-800-525-6285

Experian

P.O. Box 2002

Allen, Texas

75013

1-888-397-3742

Trans Union LLC

Fraud Victim Aid Division

P.O. Box 6790

Fullerton, calcium

92634

1-800-680-7289

It is much quicker to name the recognition bureaus to describe a possible personal identity theft. The three recognition federal agencies should also direct you a free transcript of your recognition study for you to check up on over as well. When you have your recognition reports, bank check them over thoroughly and high spot anything that is unusual, or that you make not recall. Report these disagreements back to the recognition bureaus.

You should also look for new computer addresses that are attached to your name, it is possible that your mail is being sent to person else. Report the computer addresses to the postal inspector in your country as well as to the police force and recognition bureaus.

If you happen any new recognition business relationships in your name, difference them immediately and have got them closed down. These too should be reported to your police force and to the recognition bureaus. File an personal identity larceny affidavit with these creditors. Request from these creditors a transcript of the applications that were used to subscribe up and use for the account. This volition aid you turn out to the local government that person forged your signature and can be instrumental in getting these business relationships stricken from your recognition record.

Ensure that you maintain transcripts of all certification that you have and all interactions with your fiscal institutions, recognition bureaus, police, Federal Soldier Trade Commission, creditors, station business office – everything and anything that associates to your personal identity theft. You may necessitate to engage a lawyer to assist you with your lawsuit or to prosecute person who have committed personal personal identity fraud.

There is no clip to lose if you believe you've been a victim of identity theft. Waste no clip in beginning to establish an probe and coverage your determinations to those listed above in this article. Keep an oculus on your recognition studies and all the measures and mailings that come up through your postal mail and email.

The faster you happen out person is taking your identity, the more than you can make and the less harm that volition be done to your credit. Identity larceny is a serious substance and one that you may have got to take into your ain hands. Be vigilant with your personal, fiscal and recognition information and study anything leery immediately.

Identity larceny is a relatively new word form of law-breaking where certain personal information of an individual is stolen by another group. Here's an overview of the subject.

The very thought of personal identity larceny is somewhat new. The phenomenon have grown out of the digitalisation of our society. We desire convenience and we desire it now! How many of us barely transport any hard cash now because of our standard atmosphere debit entry cards? How many of us pay some or all of our measures online? The Numbers are staggering.

With this convenience come ups some risk. Those of a criminal nature have got taken short letter of the possible value of using person else's identity. In a "plastic world", one can utilize an personal identity for just about anything. Just as importantly to the criminal mind, people are more than than willing to pay for a new personal personal identity as well.

So, what are the nuts and thunderbolts of identity theft? At its core, personal identity larceny happens when person additions entree to your critical personal information. The information they necessitate includes your legal name, current or recent computer address and societal security number. If they can acquire other Numbers such as as your recognition card or depository financial institution business relationship numbers, all the better.

Once they have got this information, there are a couple profitable ways they can go. They can tell things online and maintain them. They can run off a recognition card [it is easy] and then pass their manner across the state or locally. Alternatively, they can purchase expensive merchandises from local supplies and then go back them for the cash.

As you have got probably noticed, illegal in-migration is a hot button subject these days. Well, personal identity larceny felons are getting in on the act. Illegal immigrants necessitate societal security Numbers to acquire a occupation in many areas. Guess who can give them the Numbers in exchange for certain hard cash payments?

So, just how makes a criminal spell about committing widespread personal identity theft? They must be pretty smart, right? Some definitely are. In states of affairs like the incubus at the Monster occupation site, sophisticated worms and electronic mail techniques are used to fob people into coughing up their information.

More often than not, personal identity larceny is made possible by a blunder. CALPERS, the state employee pension monetary fund for California, is a classic example. The monetary fund went to direct out booklets to people notifying them of board elections and who was running. Oh, one problem. They printed the name, computer address and sociable security Numbers on 445,000 brochures!

At the end of the day, convenience come ups with a price. In our new practical world, personal identity larceny is it. We are at hazard for complex strategies and human error. We just have got to acquire used to it.

Laptops stand for a nearly impossible enticement for thieves, in the workplace, at the java shop, or on campus. They're small, portable, usually of high value, and adjacent to impossible to trace.

Current estimations state that a laptop computer is stolen about once every minute in this country, or one-half a million of them per year, and 97% of them are never recovered. Even more than than frustrating than losing the hardware is losing any information that's on them – particularly if it's a corporate laptop, where the data files may be more valuable than the hardware!

Even if it's not a corporate laptop, it may have got your watchwords for web sites, fiscal land land sites like PayPal or eBay embedded in it, or your bank. This tin allow a laptop computer computer stealer make arrant hash of your business relationships in proceedings with virtually no manner to follow it back.

Holding on to your laptop is critically of import and there are some simple, common sense guidelines to assist you do this.

- Don't advertise. Carry your laptop computer in something that transports other things as well. Obvious laptop computer bags are alluring marks on campus and in airports.

- Keep your eyes on it. Don't allow it out of your sight. If that agency you wait to travel to the bathroom until after you've set it in the car, you make that.

- Disincentive counts. Use a seeable lock and cablegram to latch a laptop computer down to the tabular array or chair you're at – you don't necessitate to do this sap proof, but you make demand to make it look difficult to steal.

- When you're computing in a public place, usage passwords, usage encryption, and read all the web handiness listings carefully. One particularly pitiless fast one is to impersonate the WiFi web of a public place, generally by changing the missive "l" to the figure "1" in the name, and hope person links to them thinking they're connecting to the existent network, and using a keystroke logger.

- Don't be afraid to encrypt of import data. You can even put these things up so that person who have got your laptop computer computer necessitates to have your pollex thrust to read the information on the difficult drive.

- Look at all security options – marker your laptop with ultraviolet markings, including your name and telephone figure intends that if it's recovered, it may be returned. You can also purchase software system called LoJack for Laptops that volition secretly describe it as purloined after you've notified the company, and is hooked up on the internet.

- If you're doing corporate laptop computer management, have got policies in topographic point – laptop computers will acquire stolen. Look into distant information destruction; in concurrence with a alone ID, to take sensitive information from laptop computers that are stolen. Likewise, back up everything on a laptop computer computer – nil should ever be on a laptop that's company critical that doesn't have got a stand-in on your servers.

So return care. Guard your laptop computer and maintain your information safe.

Identity theft has recently become a widely recognized problem, although it only started being mentioned in literature in the 1990's. It is one of the fastest growing crimes in the world and therefore one which we do all need to be aware of and take precautions against. In this article we will look more specifically at what identity theft is in order to give you more background in order to fight identity theft and credit card identity theft.

Identity theft consists of any crime where a criminal uses a person's personal information such as name, social security number or other personal identification facts in any illegal manner. This may include credit card identity theft where the criminal uses the person's name and details to either open up a new credit card in the other person's name in order not to pay and so works up debt in the other person's name; or taking details of that persons credit card and creating a fake copy which they then use. It may also consist of medical identity theft where a criminal uses someone's personal details and medical information illegally.

Credit card identity theft may occur in a number of different ways. Firstly, someone could scan the information off your credit card while you are not watching and use it to create a duplicate card; they could actually steal your card and use it for their own purposes; or they may open a credit card in your name, using your details but a false address and never pay the bill.

Identity theft occurs when people get hold of your personal details either through credit card skimming, stealing mail out of your mailbox or trash or perhaps breaking into hospital records or other places where your personal details are kept.

In order to best protect yourself against identity theft you should ensure that any paper that you put into the trash is properly shredded beforehand, that you request not to be on any mailing lists for credit offers and opt out of other mailing lists where people send you information in the mail. You should also ensure that your credit card never leaves your sight in stores or restaurants and if you are unsure of the place rather try to pay by cash. Learn as much as you can about identity theft in order to get more information on how to protect yourself.

In this article we have tried to briefly summarize identity theft and credit card identity theft. It is a fast growing crime and one for which we all need to protect ourselves. Personal information may be stolen and used in a number of different ways and you should be aware of these ways and how you can best fight identity theft.