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Did
You Know?
Someone's
identity is stolen 19,178 times per day. That's 799 times per
hour, 13.3 times a minute.
You
are more likely to become a victim of identity theft than you are to be
in a car accident or develop heart disease. (2000 Census;
2004 Bureau of Transportation Statistics; 2006 FTC Report)
15%
of all identity theft crimes are committed by someone close to you - a family
member or friend.
Young
adults between 18 and 25, especially college students, are the most
vulnerable group for identity theft, accounting for 29% of all identity theft
victims. (2006 FTC Report)
75%
of the counties in the
U.S.
use social security numbers on public documents.
12%
of identity theft victims end up with a wrongful criminal record.
Data theft is happening at an alarming rate from company and organization insiders.
The average identity thief has an only 1 in 700 chance of being caught -
pretty good odds if you're a bad guy.
The total loss for all types of reported identity theft--both new
account and existing account frauds is almost $53 billion dollars
annually.
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| Identity
theft is now the fastest growing white collar crime in the world - a problem
you can't afford to ignore. It's the greatest threat to your personal privacy
and your financial security today. |
Here's why:
Your personal information is stored on databases and computers
everywhere.
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Credit
card companies
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Hospitals,
doctors
-
Insurance
companies
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Retail
stores
-
Accountants/Tax
Preparers
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Banks
-
Mortgage
companies
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Schools
-
Your
home computer
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And
more.
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Since
January of 2005 over 165 million records containing personal
information such as social security numbers, drivers licenses, date of birth,
etc. were lost or stolen from companies, organizations and agencies
nationwide? That's 55% of the total
US
population!
A few recent identity theft breaches:
-
45.7
million credit/debit card #s stolen, TJMaxx
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8.5
million checking & bank account #s stolen, National Fidelity
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2.9
million personal records stolen, Georgia Dept. of Community Health
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1.3
million voter's social security #'s exposed, Chicago Board of Elections
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1.6
million personal records stolen, job site Monster.com
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2.6
million, credit card #s lost, Chase Card Services/Circuit City
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1.2
million bank account files, Bank of America
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583,000
veterans records lost, U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs
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135,000
patient/employee records stolen, Johns Hopkins University & Hospital
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382,000
employee records, The Boeing
Co.
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160,000
credit cards, Nieman Marcus
-
..
and the list goes on.
Don't be fooled by the misleading
ads and false promises for
preventing Identity Theft!
Here's what you really need to know.
(Read on)
The Biggest Misconceptions about Identity Theft:
There is a lot of misinformation floating around these days about protecting
yourself from identity theft. Here's a reality check:
Can you actually PREVENT identity theft? NO!
There are some things you can do to keep thieves from stealing your
personal information from your home, your garbage, your computer, etc.
(For example - be sure you shred all your bills and other papers with personal
information.)
The reality is that identity thieves can find your personal information in many
places (as shown above) that are out of your control. So while you
can't actually prevent your identity from getting stolen, you can protect
yourself against the devastating consequences of identity theft.
This is why you need true identity theft protection with iDefend.
Credit fraud is only ONE TYPE of identity theft.
In fact, 67% of identity theft cases involve criminal fraud in other
areas besides loans, credit cards, etc. While having loans or
credit taken out in your name is a serious problem, most identity theft cases
(true identity theft) are discovered in areas like:
-
Medical
benefits fraud
-
Tax
fraud
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Checking
accounts
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Criminal
records
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Bankruptcy
-
401k
theft
-
Social
security benefits fraud
-
And
more.
Credit Monitoring is NOT identity theft protection.
Credit fraud is just the tip of the iceberg. Credit monitoring does
nothing to prevent identity theft. If that's all you monitor, you are
missing the most important keys to catching identity theft early on before
it becomes a massive problem for you. You need to monitor every potential
area besides your credit if you want to catch the thief early on.
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Credit
reports are just snapshots of only one of the forms of identity theft.
-
The
information you see on your credit report is 60 - 90 days late. By
the time you see anything suspicious on your credit report, the thief has
already become you.
-
Many
lenders or creditors do not report to the credit bureaus! Thieves
know how to work the system.
Placing fraud alerts on your credit does NOT work.
Placing a fraud alert on your credit to "lock" it down - doesn't
work! Believe it or not, up to 50% of the time credit is still issued to
the thief. This is because much of the time, creditors don't check
credit records before issuing credit! If you have good credit already
with a company they may just issue an additional credit line without consulting
your credit report.
Thieves play the odds knowing that in many cases they'll get approved for
credit in your name even though you might have placed a fraud alert on your
credit.
Repeat identity theft happens.
Only 1 in 700 identity thieves are ever caught. If the thief
is not caught - chances are that they will come back and use your identity
again at a later time.
With iDefend, we coordinate with law enforcement agencies in an effort
to track down and prosecute the identity thief. This is critical to
preventing repeat identity thefts. By giving law enforcement an upper
hand, we are able to help catch 1 in 20 identity thieves! We don't
just monitor and restore identities, we actually assist the police, district
attorney's, etc. to find and put identity thieves behind bars.
Get
true identity protection.
Sign Up Now!
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