In regards to the identity cloning aspect of this, how does this hurt the identity being cloned? No money is taken and no reputation is being tarnished.

The story Eugene mentioned is the main reason I haven't done this myself. However, an alternative for freezing a report would be to receive credit report alerts . The drawback for this is that it may be a little too late by the time you can act.

I placed a fraud alert on my report for some reason and forgot about it until recently when I started a process of car shopping. I remember how easy it was to place one but it was tooth and nail to get it off.I wound up sending seven letters because of the wrong info from each CB about what they would accept to remove it.

I recently suffered from credit card fraud with my Capital One card. Thankfully I didn't have to pay anything. They said it was internet fraud...Totaled $165.

Great info... I think this would drive the credit addicts crazy when on a apply spree!

It helped me recover from my addiction to the credit card apps.

A good way to protect yourself from identity theft is to "freeze" your credit reports. If anyone's interested, click on the following link(s) for more information]http://www.experian.com/consumer/security_freeze.html[/URL]

http://www.transunion.com/corporate/personal/fraudIdentityTheft/fraudPrevention/securityFreeze.page

http://www.equifax.com/cs/Satellite?c=EFX_ContentRoot&cid=1165203975981&pagename=5-1%2F5-1_Layout

Great info... I think this would drive the credit addicts crazy when on a apply spree!

A good way to protect yourself from identity theft is to "freeze" your credit reports. If anyone's interested, click on the following link(s) for more information:

http://www.experian.com/consumer/security_freeze.html

http://www.transunion.com/corporate/personal/fraudIdentityTheft/fraudPrevention/securityFreeze.page

http://www.equifax.com/cs/Satellite?c=EFX_ContentRoot&cid=1165203975981&pagename=5-1%2F5-1_Layout

Great posts! I think ID protection needs to be talked about a little more...

Here's one for starters:

" Charge: Fast-food worker stole 130+ identities in id theft ring "

Mail correspondence to Equifax

Equifax Credit Information Services, Inc
P.O. Box 740241
Atlanta, GA 30374

For peace of mind, you can request a credit report for your daughter through Experian’s online fraud center or by calling 1 888 EXPERIAN (1 888 397 3742) and selecting the fraud option. Simply follow the instructions provided. You will be asked to provide documentation verifying that you are the parent or legal guardian before Experian can send you a credit report.

Here I thought it was an address but it is a site, try this:

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Worried about Child Identity Theft?

* Online * Phone number: (800) 680-7289
TransUnion Fraud Victim Assistance Department
P.O. Box 6790
Fullerton, CA 92834

Identity Theft Techniques


In most cases, a criminal needs to obtain personally identifiable information or documents about an individual in order to impersonate them. They may do this by]
[*]Stealing mail or rummaging through rubbish containing personal information (dumpster diving)
[*]Retrieving information from redundant equipment, like computer servers that have been disposed of carelessly, e.g. at public dump sites, given away without proper sanitizing etc.
[*]Researching about the victim in government registers, internet search engines, or public records search services.
[*]Stealing payment or identification cards, either by pickpocketing or surreptitiously by skimming through a compromised card reader
[*]Remotely reading information from an RFID chip on a smart card, RFID-enabled credit card, or passport
[*]Eavesdropping on public transactions to obtain personal data (shoulder surfing)
[*]Stealing personal information in computer databases (Trojan horses, hacking)
[*]Advertising bogus job offers (either full-time or work from home based) to which the victims will reply with their full name, address, curriculum vitae, telephone numbers, and banking details
[*]Infiltration of organizations that store large amounts of personal information
[*]Impersonating a trusted company/institution/organization in an electronic communication to promote revealing of personal information (phishing)
[*]Obtaining castings of fingers for falsifying fingerprint identification.
[*]Browsing social network (MySpace, Facebook, Bebo etc) sites, online for personal details that have been posted by users
[*]Changing your Address thereby diverting billing statements to another location to either get current legitimate account info or to delay discovery of fraudulent accounts
[/LIST]

Types of Identity Theft

Financial identity theft

A classic example of credit-dependent financial crime (bank fraud) occurs when a criminal obtains a loan from a financial institution by impersonating someone else. The criminal pretends to be the victim by presenting an accurate name, address, birth date, or other information that the lender requires as a means of establishing identity. Even if this information is checked against the data at a national consumer reporting agency, the lender will encounter no concerns, as all of the victim's information matches the records. The lender has no easy way to discover that the person is pretending to be the victim, especially if an original, government-issued id can't be verified (as is the case in online, mail, telephone, and fax-based transactions). This kind of crime is considered non-self-revealing, although authorities may be able to track down the criminal if the funds for the loan were mailed to them. The criminal keeps the money from the loan, the financial institution is never repaid, and the victim is wrongly blamed for defaulting on a loan s/he never authorized.
In most cases the financial identity theft will be reported to the national Consumer credit reporting agency or Credit bureaus (U.S.) as a collection or bad loan under the impersonated person's record. The victim may discover the incident by being denied a loan, by seeing the accounts or complaints when they view their own credit history, or by being contacted by creditors or collection agencies. The victim's credit score, which affects one's ability to acquire new loans or credit lines, will be adversely affected until they are able to successfully dispute the fraudulent accounts and have them removed from their record.
Other forms of bank fraud associated with identity theft include "account takeovers", passing bad checks, and "busting out" a checking or credit account with bad checks, counterfeit money orders, or empty ATM envelope deposits. If withdrawals or checks are made against the impersonated person's real accounts, that person may need to convince the bank that the withdrawal was fraudulent or file a court case in order to retrieve lost funds. If checks are written against fraudulently opened checking accounts, the person receiving the checks will suffer the financial loss. However, the recipient might attempt to retrieve money from the impersonated person by using a collection agency. This action would appear in the victim's credit history until it was shown to be fraud.
Identity cloning and concealment

In this situation, a criminal acquires personal identifiers, and then impersonates someone for the purpose of concealment from authorities. This may be done by a person who wants to avoid arrest for crimes, by a person who is working illegally in a foreign country, or by a person who is hiding from creditors or other individuals. Unlike credit-dependent financial crimes, concealment can continue for an indeterminate amount of time without ever being detected. Additionally, the criminal might attempt to obtained fraudulent documents or IDs consistent with the cloned identity to make the impersonation even more convincing and concealed.
Criminal identity theft

When a criminal identifies himself to police as another individual it is sometimes referred to as "Criminal Identity Theft." In some cases the criminal will obtain a state issued ID using stolen documents or personal information belonging to another person, or they might simply use a fake ID. When the criminal is arrested for a crime, they present the ID to authorities, who place charges under the identity theft victim's name and release the criminal. When the criminal fails to appear for his court hearing, a warrant would be issued under the assumed name. The victim might learn of the incident if the state suspends their own drivers license, or through a background check performed for employment or other purposes, or in rare cases could be arrested when stopped for a minor traffic violation.
It can be difficult for a criminal identity theft victim to clear their record. The steps required to clear the victim's incorrect criminal record depend on what jurisdiction the crime occurred in and whether the true identity of the criminal can be determined. The victim might need to locate the original arresting officers, or be fingerprinted to prove their own identity, and may need to go to a court hearing to be cleared of the charges. Obtaining an expungement of court records may also be required. Authorities might permanently maintain the victim's name as an alias for the criminal's true identity in their criminal records databases. One problem that victims of criminal identity theft may encounter is that various data aggregators might still have the incorrect criminal records in their databases even after court and police records are corrected. Thus it is possible that a future background check will return the incorrect criminal records.