IDENTITY THEFT—EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT IT

Have you been a victim yet? The famous crime fighter J. Edgar Hoover would be surprised to learn about this new invisible criminal wreaking financial havoc in America. The criminal never uses a gun or even threats. Welcome to this century…and identity theft. Statistically ten million of us are robbed in this way each year. The FTC estimates $50 billion is stolen in this manner each year. And the people we trust most, the corporations and even government agencies, put 50 million of us at risk because of their carelessness. The final devastating fact is that it takes an average of 175 hours and $800 for each victim of ID theft to clear his or her name.

Ethan Pope has done us all a favor by writing about and investigating Identity Theft in his new book of the same name. It is the most complete work to date of all the ways that we can be cheated and our financial world ruined. There is much to learn about the internet scams and then there is the credit card thefts and stealing other secure information. There are two big targets that these “crooks” go after: The young, who know little about this subject, and the elderly, who have always been easy targets.

Pope gives us ten rules of conduct for busting scams that are so simple, but often overlooked. Then he checklists 75 great ways to guard against any kind of theft in any situation. One of the simplest (#43) “if asked for your Social Security number, ask why this is needed and then if the answer is not satisfactory, refuse or only give the last four digits”. There is no reason to give this out except to a government questioner or your bank. In cases of employment tell them you will reply only after you have been made a legal employee. So there you are, and it’s time you put a security lock on your own identity.