7 Ways Your Stolen Identity is Used by Criminals

By now, we've all heard that identity theft is a serious problem that affects millions of people each year. Identity theft is essentially a crime that occurs when someone has their personal identifying information used by another person without their knowledge or permission. Information often used by identity thieves to commit fraud include financial account numbers (bank, credit cards, loans, retirement accounts etc. ), driver's license numbers, health insurance subscriber numbers, and probably most often - Social Security numbers.

When your personal ID information is stolen by these criminals, it can be used to commit fraud in a number of ways. The following lists seven (7) of the ways identity thieves use stolen information to pursue their illicit activities:

1) Open new bank accounts in your name. Once the account is open the crooks can easily write bad checks for a number of purposes. By the time this fraud is discovered, the thieves will be long gone and all the richer for it.

2) Take out new loans in your name. Of course the identity thieves will not pay the money back...they'll just take the money and run.

3) Forge checks on your legitimate account to cash at your bank. Hopefully they won't clean out your account, but they in all probability will.

4) Change the billing address of your credit card account. After the billing address is changed, it's pretty easy to run up fraudulent charges and leave you holding the bag.

5) Obtain your bank debit card numbers and PINs and make ATM cash withdrawals.

6) Steal your Social Security number and create all kinds of havoc with your finances and retirement accounts.

7) Assume your actual name to start a new life and hide a criminal past. These imposters get a driver's license or ID with your name on it and their picture. This can be especially dangerous to you, as they may present your stolen identity to police and court officials when arrested, which will then create a criminal record in your name.

In conclusion, you can see that identity theft is a serious matter that can cause untold damage to your name and finances. For some victims the damage is minimal and can be repaired fairly easily; for others, it may cost an exorbitant amount of money and time to repair the damage. In addition, some victims may find out that negative information contained in their credit reports cost them job opportunities, denied loans and credit. And in the most egregious cases, they could be arrested and charged for crimes they did not even commit.
Jesse Whitehead lives in California with his family and enjoys writing articles on a variety of different subjects. His newest interest is in clawfoot tub faucets which he thinks are very cool! Come visit his latest website at http://clawfoottubfaucets.net for more information about clawfoot tub faucets.