Identity theft has become a worldwide crisis, particularly in the United States. The Federal Trade Commission states that the crime of identity theft is rapidly growing and will affect thousands of people throughout the world and because the rate of conviction and prosecution of identify theft criminals is so small, this crime will just grow worse over time. If you are like the majority of people, then you may wonder exactly what identity theft is, how it can affect you, and what thieves may do with your information once they have it. The goal of this article is to examine the crime of identity theft and look at how it can affect the average person.

Essentially, identity theft is where a criminal gains access to your personal identification information, be it your Social Security number, credit card number, or bank account information. You may be amazed at what somebody can do once they have access to your personal identification history. Once a person with the available knowledge and lack of conscience has gained access to your Social Security number, address, phone number, and birth date they have an open ticket on accessing and abusing your credit. You may think that this cant happen to you but the Federal Trade Commission estimates that 9 million Americans will be affected by identity theft each year and unfortunately, you could be next on the list. If you become a victim of identity theft, the consequences can be catastrophic.

Victims of identity theft not only have to go through the difficult, time consuming, and self demeaning act of proving their innocence, but will also be required to engage in the process of restoring their credit and good name. The act of restoring your credit can take hundreds of hours spread out through a period of several years and can cost thousands of dollars in out of pocket expenses for the victim. In addition to this fact, an identity theft victim can have their life put on hold while trying to restore their credit, making it difficult or impossible to secure home mortgages, automobile loans, and credit for other needed items. On rare occasions, an identity theft victim can actually be arrested for crimes that they did not commit. To make matters worse, someone who has fallen prey to identity theft may not even realize what has happened for months until they are contacted by debt collectors for bills that they did not incur. To make matters even worse, if an identity theft victim needs to seek another job, their now negative credit history may have a large impact in obtaining gainful employment.

Once a person understands what identity theft is and how it may affect them, they often wonder just what an identity theft thief will do with their information. The possibilities are virtually endless, with identity theft criminals using stolen personal identification to rent apartments, get credit cards, open telephone or utility accounts, and even open bank accounts, all in the victims name. While some identity theft criminals are simply people with bad credit themselves who may use your information for the purpose of obtaining credit and will actually pay the bills, many more will simply spend with no intention of ever paying back the debt and continue to do so until your credit and good name are completely destroyed. Some identity theft criminals have actually filed for bankruptcy using a victims social security number.

As seen by this article, identity theft can happen to anyone, and can often go unnoticed until the point where the victims credit history and good name has been completely destroyed. While recovering from identity theft can be a long and hard road to recovery, there are steps that someone can take to narrow the possibilities of becoming an identity theft victim. Anti identity theft programs such as LifeLock specialize in helping people protect their credit and personal identification information before they become an identity theft victim.