Identity Theft Awareness Growing
from the so-now-what? dept
With all the stories floating around about online identity theft it's almost hard to believe that anyone isn't aware of it. The good news, though, is that many more people are aware of the potential for identity theft, but that doesn't seem to help prevent it very much. In many cases, it's making people much more careful about sharing data online. There seems to be a mixed opinion, though, on who should be responsible for helping them stop identity theft. Many people think it's their own responsibility, but others say financial institutions should be the most responsible (how about both?). In the meantime, though, I don't see how more awareness can be considered a bad thing. The more aware people are, the less likely they'll fall for the simple identity theft tricks that are out there.
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Identity Theft
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Online??? What about offline???
Most identity theft occurs in the real world, not online. Whether it be insiders who steal the information from applications and rental/sales agreements, or from those who happen across carelessly discarded data, or those who just steal information from databases or other places, it is a real world problem which has little to do with online sales beyond the fact that computers may make identity theft a little easier to apply for credit cards or make purchases with stolen information with less fear of being discovered.
And like I've said before, the deck is stacked against us and for those who practice identity theft. Whether or not they were intentionally set up this way, the credit reporting agencies only help identity theft, in the fact that they make it rediculously difficult to obtain a free credit report or fix errors on the report. Instead of working for the consumer, they exist only to serve themselves. I've fought with the credit reporting agencies several times because they placed my father's debts on my report, or vice versa, even though we don't have anything beyond our first and last name in common (he has an entirely different middle name, social security number, etc.) They aren't willing to accept the truth that they screwed up, even though a call back to the credit card or loan company showed that they submitted the correct information. If we are ever going to get a handle on identity theft, then these organizations will either need to disappear and be replaced with non-profit organizations or the credit agencies themselves will need to implement stronger protections against false data. I for one would like to see the credit reporting agencies send letters to folks requesting credit cards, at their last known good address, every time someone tries to request new credit or asks for a credit report in their name, so that they can challenge any request that they didn't make, instead of the current method which is to charge folks illegal amounts of money (as the FCRA specifically limits the amount of money they can charge for a report, but they routinely ask for more than this limit.)
Without these changes, identity theft is easy, with low risk and excellent return on investment.
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Re: Identity Theft
email me at darrenrich@prepaidlegal.com or check out www.prepaidlegal.com/idt/darrenrich for more info
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