Internet Identity theft among fastest growing crimes

Internet identity theft is one of the fastest-growing crimes in the U.S. today. For five straight years, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ranked it as one of the most-reported types of fraud. Despite the increasing awareness of identity theft among consumers and financial institutions, the identity-theft racket shows no signs of slowing. Reported losses from identity theft, currently responsible for over 40 percent of all fraud complaints, approached nearly $300 million last year.

"True identity theft is a problem that goes far beyond simple credit-card fraud, against which consumers are fully protected, thanks to zero-liability laws and other regulations," said Dave Collett, a spokesperson for MasterCard. "ID theft is when a person's entire identity is taken over. For that to happen, a fraudster would need far more information than just what is found on a credit or debit card."

All too often, consumers provide that needed information unknowingly through careless Web surfing and by using computers whose security is breached by virus and spyware infections.

more

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20060425/bs_nf/42950

The woman who stole her ID even had breast implants on her credit...

What happened?

And it took my friend three years of pure hell to restore her credit and get the lawsuits against her dealt with.

i hope no one do that to me

I hope no one does that to you either.
Welcome to DU LexMan81 :hi: