Protect Your Identity

Protect Your Identity
By: Congressman Lamar Smith

July 29, 2005

Every day thousands of Americans become identity theft victims.

This type of crime occurs when someone wrongly obtains or uses your name, credit card number, social security number or other personal information to commit fraud or theft. Its implications on your financial security and personal privacy can be disastrous.

Offenders use this information to run up charges on your credit card or open new credit accounts in your name. They may also open a bank account and write bad checks using your identity, or worse, transfer funds from your own account.In some cases, people's identities have been stolen by these criminals to get a job, pay for home utilities or obtain benefits.

For the victims of these crimes, the damage can be long lasting. These unauthorized charges, bad checks and missed bill payments, of which you may have no knowledge, can lower your credit rating. As a result, victims often are unable to get new credit cards, car loans or home mortgages.

All it takes for someone to assume your identity is a dropped credit card slip, a social security number found in a stolen or lost wallet, or a reply to a fraudulent advertisement asking for personal information.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reports that almost 250,000 Americans claimed that they were victims of identity theft last year. Twenty-six thousand of these victims are from Texas. A recent survey, however, found that those numbers are much higher. It estimates that the total number of identity theft victims in 2004 is more than nine million people and they have suffered losses of $52 billion.

While Congress has passed legislation to help protect consumers from identity theft, and federal agencies have increased their vigilance and their prosecution of such criminals, they can not combat this crime alone. We must do our own part to guard our personal and financial information from this threat.

There are number of actions you can take in your daily life to prevent someone from hijacking your identity. Here are some recommendations from the FTC:

- Give out your Social Security number only when necessary;

- Sign credit and debit cards when they arrive and carry only the cards you need;

- Keep your PIN numbers a secret and never write them down on a piece of paper in your wallet. Avoid obvious passwords like your birthday;

- Do not give out you card numbers to persons without confirming they are from a reputable company;

- Prevent "shoulder surfers" from learning your account and pin numbers by shielding the keypad when using pay phones and ATMs;

- Draw a line through blank spaces on credit slips, never sign a blank slip, and keep your receipts;

- Shred documents that contain account information to prevent thieves from finding this information in the trash;

- Protect your mail by asking the U.S. Postal Service to put your mail on hold when you are out of town;

- Prevent computer hackers from obtaining information on your computer by installing firewalls and virus-detection software;

- Compare receipts with account statements to watch for unauthorized transactions.

While these precautions will help you better protect yourself, they are not foolproof. In the event you find yourself a victim of identity theft, the FTC suggests that you place an alert on your credit file by contacting any one of the three major credit bureaus. Once the alert is placed, order a free copy of your credit report.

Next, close accounts that have been tampered with or opened fraudulently. You should then file a police report and send a copy to your creditors. Finally, file an official complaint with the FTC which maintains a database of identity theft cases used by law enforcement agencies for investigations.

To learn more on how to prevent against, and recover from, identity theft, including how to file a complaint and contact creditors, visit the FTC's website section entitled "Take Charge: Fighting Back Against Identity Theft" at www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/idtheft.htm.

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