The holiday season is in full swing with local and online purchases in high gear. This brings an increased risk of ID theft through the swipes of our credit/debit cards, fraudulent delivery related text and emails, and information we’re sharing online. For these reasons alone, it’s not surprising that December has been chosen as the National Identity Theft Prevention and Awareness Month.
ID theft remains by far the highest type of fraud that has been reported by consumers to BBB and other agencies whose data is compiled in the Federal Trade Commission’s Consumer Sentinel. In fact, Georgia ranked No. 1 for ID theft cases reported in relation to population size in 2021, with 150,898 cases. Tennessee wasn’t far behind, holding the 9th highest spot with 79,012 cases reported.
ID thieves are constantly looking at ways they can steal your information and your money. They have many techniques to collect personally identifiable information (PII). Once they gain enough information, they can effectively become you, using your identity to open accounts, file taxes, or obtain medical coverage. Unfortunately, there’s also many technologies available to help these thieves gather and utilize our payment information, both at point-of-sale devices in stores and by compromising our online activity.
How identity theft scams work
How do people steal your identity? With enough personal information, a scammer can pretend to be you and commit a wide range of crimes. They can make…
