Identity Theft: what is it?

Identity Theft: what is it?

Cassandra Nash

Mr. Craig Goss

FI 201

Comprehensive Paper

What is identity theft?

Identity theft occurs when someone steals personal information (name, social security, address, phone numbers, or passport number, and so on) and uses it to extort money from you

Identity theft is one of the leading and fastest growing crimes in the USA at the moment. Each year between 500,000 and 700,000 American people face identity theft.

The worst states for identity theft

Arizona is known to have the highest number per capita in identity theft at 142.5 victims/100,000 people. Why is this? They have golf, the sun, and all the entertainment that happens there. This is like a hot bed for those that want to be thieves. Nevada comes in 2nd, California in 3rd, Texas, Colorado, Florida, New York, Washington, Oregon, and last but not least, Illinois in 10th place.

How do they steal your identity?

There are several ways that identity thieves can do this.

The Apex Building, headquarters of the Federal Tra...

Identity Theft on iTunes

Vincent Bethell Self Aware Placard

They can either dumpster dive (look through you garbage for information), skimming (using a special storage device to get your credit/debit card number), phishing (act like financial institutions/companies and send you span to get your information), address change (they will send information to a company telling them you changed your address), old-fashion stealing (stealing your personal possessions such as wallets, purses, and so on), and pretexting ( they get your information under false pretenses).

Ways to prevent identity theft

There are several ways to help reduce the probability of identity theft. I came up with a few that I felt were good rules to follow. By following these, you can help yourself and others from stealing:

Go out and buy a shredder.

Have passwords for your accounts. Not a name of a person-make it up!...