Identity Theft
Written by Martin on – 12:58 pm -Identity Theft: Unlawfully Acquiring another’s Means of Identification
The term identity theft first appeared in the American language around 1996 and, its earliest reference pertains to a lobby of the US Federal Trade Commission that regulates the criminal abuse of a consumer’s “means of identification”. Consumers were more and more concerned with financial crimes that exploited their credit worthiness and, were used to commit loan fraud, mortgage fraud, lines-of-credit fraud and much more. A common
thread that ran in most of these identity theft crimes was that lenders as well as vendors relied on shared use of highly centralized national credit-rating services and, combined with centralization of financial services, along with the emerging national retail outlets that did not require personally knowing their customers, helped criminals in devising new methods of defrauding consumers.
Check Kiting, Fraudulently Using Credit Cards and, More
There are other identity theft crimes such as check kiting, running amok with personal savings accounts as well as theft and fraudulently using credit cards. The term identity theft morphed it to include a greater range of identification based crimes. What was once dead beat dads avoiding their financial obligations rapidly changed its face to include money laundering, trafficking in human beings and also manipulating stock markets and, even found its way into terrorism? Identity theft generates a certain amount of confusion when trying to reconcile the term with a crime. Though it is not possible to steal a person’s identity in a pure linguistic sense, it is possible to steal their means of identification as well as their identifying documents. Identity theft may also be thought of as being a term to describe exploitation of means of identification for unlawful purposes.
With technology readily available for producing forged identification documents, the onset of identity theft related crimes has grown and, criminals use stolen identification to clone others and conceal their true identity from authorities. Crimes such as illegal immigration, terrorism as well as espionage are areas where identity theft plays an important role and, it may also be used for blackmail. Cases of identity theft that involve cloning another person can be used to attack payment systems such as getting hold of medical treatment and, unlike credit-dependent financial crimes, these crimes do not readily reveal themselves and, may continue for indeterminate amounts of time, escaping detection all the time.
Identity theft is made possible by unlawfully acquiring legally attributed personal identification and, in the case of consumers, it can be attributed to personal naivety when gullible people provide their personal information to thieves or are careless with such information. The need to guard zealously one’s personal information cannot be stressed enough and, one will pay the penalty if one is lax in this matter.
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Report Identity Theft
Written by Martin on December 8, 2007 – 10:20 am -Report Identity Theft: Alert Concerned Agencies to Apprehend the Culprits
Being a victim of identity theft can be an emotionally draining as well as confusing event which becomes worse if one is unaware of the procedures to follow for taking remedial action. It may often require reporting identity theft to a number of agencies that include local, state as well as federal agencies, all of whom may be involved in
investigating the particular instance of identity theft. It is vitally important to understand as well as know whom to call so that one can act quickly so as to significantly impact the future course of investigating the crime. Before one reports identity theft, one needs to understand that one’s identity has been stolen. There is no point in jumping to conclusions since law enforcement agencies only want hard facts. This means taking time to gather information so as to be able to reasonably determine whether one is truly a victim of identity theft or not. Next, one should determine how the identity was stolen and, providing details regarding the same would help law enforcements in their investigations.
One should also have all relevant documentation such as bank statements, credit reports, Social Security Earnings Report as well as other documentations which will help establish one’s claim.
Keep Close Track of Your Personal Information
To report identity theft, one need to contact the local law enforcement who have the jurisdiction to handle the case where local or state laws have been broken. In addition, identity theft is a federal offence. It may also be prudent to report identity theft online with the Federal Trade Commission who will then share the information with the concerned law enforcement agencies. It may not be known by many people but, the United States Postal Service has their own enforcement division and, United States Postal inspectors are federal law enforcement agents that are empowered to investigate cases of postal offenses. One can contact them and report identity theft, if the thief has used the postal service for illegal means.
The Social Security Administration Office is also able to receive as well as handle allegations pertaining to violations of the law that affect Social Security Administration. In case one’s social security number has been lost or stolen, this is the concerned agency to contact to report identity theft. In the case of phishing, one may call the FBI Internet Fraud Complaint Center and, filing an online report will alert the authorities to suspected fraudulent activities and they are a central repository for receiving complaints pertaining to internet fraud. Reporting identity theft is the first step in the long journey that victims will travel on in order to clear their names.
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