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How to Make Yourself Virtually Identity
Theft PROOF in 60 Minutes or Less
Part I
By Terry Price
(C) Copyright Terry Price
All Rights Reserved
The FBI has called it "The fastest
growing crime in America." Close to 10
million Americans every year are
victimized by it and the costs are
estimated at 50 billion dollars
annually. Many criminals get off easy
while the victims spend years working
to restore their damaged credit reports
and reputations. Worse yet, there seems
to be no end in sight.
"The popularity of the crime is simply
growing faster than the solutions to
stop it" many experts conclude. The
task of recovery is so time consuming
and tedious, multiple states have
resorted to creating "Identity Theft
Passports" for victims in an attempt to
ease the pain for them as they endure
the lengthy and frustrating clean up
process.
By the end of this article I will share
with you the secrets of making yourself
virtually identity theft proof in 60
minutes or less (for free). I use the
term "secrets" because less than 1% of
the country are aware of these
techniques (let alone practicing
them).
If Americans took these preventative
steps up to 99% of all identity theft
would be eliminated. However, "why"
this beneficial approach is not being
made common knowledge in the mainstream
media is something I will not disclose
in this article (more on that another
time). For the moment I believe the
biggest crime one can commit is to not
share this information with their
friends and family (by the end of this
article you will understand why).
Unlike other authors covering this
subject I will not insult your
intelligence by sharing common sense
tips like "Don�t carry your SSN Card or
ATM PIN# in your wallet or purse" or
"Keep all data sensitive documents like
credit card and bank statements locked
up in your home or office". This is
elementary advice at best. The key to
protecting yourself from identity theft
is to look at what the masses are doing
and then do the opposite (to say the
least).
Almost 70% of Americans are now
shredding all their mail and documents
and many are even subscribing to credit
monitoring services or buying identity
theft insurance in an attempt to
protect themselves from becoming
victims. While this is better than
doing nothing it�s a far cry from TRUE
security.
Study The Past To Predict The Future
Contrary to popular belief statistics
show the majority of identity theft
does NOT result from the internet as
most consumers have been led to
believe. In fact, less than 10% of
identity theft cases (where data
compromise can be determined)
originated online. In almost 50% of
cases consumers are the ones who detect
the breach. In nearly 40% of cases the
criminal was someone who was in close
contact with the victim (friend,
relative, neighbor, coworker, in-home
employee, waiter/waitress or financial
institution employee). In then end,
nearly one third of identity theft
cases come from a stolen wallet/purse,
checkbook or credit card.
More interesting, the age of the
primary victim has lowered. If you are
between the age of 25 to 34 you are now
the largest target for the crime (65+
has become the smallest). The bad news
is that while identity theft nationwide
is on the decline (8.9 million victims
last year down from 9.3 million in
2005) the dollar amount per victim is
going up ($6,383 last year, up from
$5,885 in 2005) and so are the number
of hours victims spend cleaning up the
mess (40+ hours last year, up from 28
hours in 2005).
We�ve all heard the saying "An ounce of
prevention is worth a pound of cure".
Yet, no one is practicing it in the
pandemic of identity theft. Credit
monitoring is nice but only 11% of
consumers ever catch identity theft
through this means. Identity Theft
Insurance (according to many experts)
is even more of a hoax. A product
marketed by playing on the fears of
American consumers which does nothing
more than assist them in cleaning up
the mess only AFTER their identity has
been stolen.
A Different Approach
The following is a completely different
approach to preventing and protecting
yourself from identity theft. It is
based on the reality that we live in a
world now where there is zero privacy
of personal data. Meaning that your
name, address, phone number, social
security number, date of birth (even
your mothers maiden name) can be
obtained by ANYONE for a fee.
If you�re one who feels this is
paranoid thinking let me tell you about
Amy Boyer. In 1999 Miss Boyer had an old
high school classmate (Liam Youens) come
back into her life many years later. Mr.
Youens obtained Amy�s SSN and other
personal information after paying
Docusearch Inc. $150. After Youens shot
Miss Boyer to death he then turned the
gun on himself. Today the company tells
visitors to its website that "not all
searches are available to the public"
and some are reserved for the
investigative and legal industry. How�s
that for homeland security?
With this "different" approach we break
down identity theft into two distinct
categories. 1.) Basic Identity Theft,
and 2.) Credit Hijacking. By definition
"Basic Identity Theft" is when the
perpetrator steals your identity and
then uses it to obtain NEW credit
accounts for their personal gain.
"Credit Hijacking" falls under a
criminal stealing your identity in
order to access and use your EXISTING
credit accounts. Each type of fraud is
different and therefore so is your plan
of defense.
