Identity-Theft Complaints Double
from the people-becoming-more-aware? dept
The FTC announced today that the number of complaints they received about identity theft doubled in the past year. Of course, it's unclear if the actual number of identity thefts doubled, or if people were just more aware of the crime, and that they should report it to the FTC. Of course, most of the articles about identity theft tell you to do things like keeping information private and shredding documents - none of which stopped an inside employee at a credit bureau from giving out 30,000 records over the past few years. The best advice in this article is that people should monitor their credit ratings more carefully. In many cases, people don't realize they've been a victim of identity theft until much later. The article mentions one woman whose identity was stolen by a woman who later stole a rental car. The next time the real person tried to rent a car, she was nearly arrested.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team