The Impact Of Identity Theft On Your Life

Identify theft is a big issue today. Yet, even years ago identify theft was occurring quite frequently. With so much information being passed through computers, it has become even easier to obtain enough information to steal someone's identity.

You probably think that identity theft won't happen to you because that is exactly what a lady in Central Florida thought. Yet this lady went to jail because of identify theft!

One Saturday morning, a 32 year-old woman went to the grocery store. In her wallet she had money to pay for groceries, her driver's license for identification and a checkbook for her money market account. In no way, however, was the thief she was to encounter looking to steal money. The thief wanted to steal her identity!

Another woman who looked very similar to this lady but had a background of crime knew that she was again in legal trouble. She didn't want the police, should she encounter any, to know who she really was. The perfect solution was to find someone that she could "pass for". "Where would someone be on a Saturday morning that might look like me", she thought. Then the idea to look for that victim in the grocery store struck her. Sure enough, she found the perfect victim.

Sometime after paying for groceries the thief struck, leaving the victim totally unaware. It was sometime later that the victim noticed her wallet was no longer in her purse. She thought she might have dropped it in her van. She searched to no avail. She called the grocery store but no wallet had been turned in. She really was only concerned about getting a few things back like the pictures of her father that were in her wallet. She knew the money would not be returned but maybe the other items would. This was not to be; on Monday, she obtained a duplicate driver's license, closed the money market account and replaced it with another. The experience was over - or so she thought.

Six months later, this same woman was driving down a highway, going a little over the speed limit. The police stopped her. Thinking the only problem was a speeding ticket, the woman was friendly and confident when giving her information to the police. Moments later, she was handcuffed and taken to jail! The lists of charges against her were quite long and, having never been inside a jail, she was quite traumatized.

While it was later proven that the many charges against her were not in fact her crimes, it cost over $3,000 to get the problem straightened out, plus many hours of her time. Today, with computer crime, a stolen identify can cost much, much more to repair.

The moral of this story is that you should always carefully protect your identity from theft whether dealing with computer information or personal information in your wallet or car or home. Don't carry more personal information than you really need to and protect it with great care.

Next article: Preventing Social Security Identity Theft

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