Don't Become a Victim of Identity Theft
By Reid Goldsborough

Imagine having your bank account drained, being unable to use your credit cards, and seeing your credit rating trashed. Imagine then spending hour after hour trying to clear your good name and get your life back together.

Identity theft is the No. 1 consumer complaint reported to the Federal Trade Commission's Consumer Sentinel Database. An estimated 500,000 to 700,000 people a year become victims, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The scope of the problem may be even worse than this, with the number of consumers who have fallen prey to identity thieves being significantly underreported, according to a new report by market research firm Gartner Inc. It estimated that 3.4 percent of U.S. consumers became victims over the previous year.

It's not just individuals but also organized groups who commit identity theft, including international terrorist cells, says Jonathan J. Rusch, a lawyer with the Department of Justice who specializes in fraud prevention. "They're using more and more sophisticated techniques to entice people to grant them access to their personal information and more and more sophisticated technology to access it behind their backs," he said.

Now that you've gotten the daylights scared out of you, rest assured that by the very fact that you're reading this right now, chances are less that you'll become victimized. Identity thieves are more successful against those who don't stay on top of things.

This is particularly so online, where identity thieves can have an easier time finding information about you and profiting from it, if you're not careful. The fastest-growing technique is "phishing," a practice of using "spoofed," or fake e-mails and Web sites to trick you into revealing your Web site password, Social Security number, checking account information, credit-card data, mother's maiden name and other personal information.