Identity Theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in the country. Identity theft occurs when an unscrupulous person gathers enough personal information about you and manages to successfully impersonate you in person, by mail, online or over the telephone. Hence Identity Theft can be termed as "stealing of another person's personal information such as credit card number, social security number and other personal information for the purpose of using the victim's credit rating to buy merchandise, borrow money and otherwise run up debts that are never repaid by the fraud". Identity Theft thus results in irreparable loss to the victim. Identity theft is the impersonation by a fraud of someone with good credit (in many cases also people with not so good credit such as students), the co-option of another person's personal information (e.g., name, social security number, credit card number, passport) without that victims knowledge and the fraudulent use of such knowledge.

Identity Theft may be referred to as Identity Fraud, ID Theft, Account Takeover, Credit Card Fraud, New Account Fraud, Criminal Identity Theft, Bank Fraud, Check Fraud, or Wire Fraud depending on whom you talk. Although different agencies, organizations, companies or institutes may come up with different terms, don't be confused. The crime is still Identity Theft!

How Does Identity Theft Occur?

All the information that is need is your social security number, birth date, address, phone number or any other information that can be discovered. Suitably armed with this information and a forged driver's license or an identity card with the thief's photo on it instead of yours the identity thief can easily apply for instant credit or a loan in person posing as you or via mail. This is the most common form of Identity Theft , but not the only one. Such Identity thieves have used unsuspecting victim's identities to commit crimes ranging from traffic infractions to large scale felonies.

Often, an identity thief will provide his own address, (claiming that you have moved your location) in an effort to prolong the fraud. Negligent credit grantors, in their rush to issue credit, do not verify all the information or addresses, or even care to check the relevant identities match. Once the imposter opens the first account, they can use this new account, along with the other identifying information, to bolster their credibility and obtain even more credit in your name.

These actions of the criminals result in a proliferation of the fraud, and the identity thief is well on his way to getting rich and ruining your credit and good name.

Why is Identity Theft so widespread?

The major reason, why identity theft is so prevalent is that credit card companies and credit disbursement companies in the country have an interest in not making the Identity Theft cases public and they discourage making identity and credit information secure. Although estimates reveal that credit card companies do lose up to $5 billion dollars (US) a year and they are willing to accept this huge loss as "cost of doing business", since making credit information secure would make using credit somewhat less convenient and might discourage people from using it.

The sole intention of this site is to draw together and link identity theft, ID Theft, ID fraud, Internet fraud and related scam-prevention information, gathered from scores of government websites and other websites, into a single and easy to navigate website.