The Emerging Identity Theft Industry

"Take chances, make mistakes. That's how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave."

- Mary Tyler Moore

Oh great. Another article about identity theft. How original.

I know what you're thinking. Those same old boring statistics and scare tactics to make you worry about someone ripping off your identity. We've heard that it's the fastest growing crime in America claiming over 10 million victims each year in the United States alone. We heard it all, but what can done to actually prevent it from happening in the first place. The services that I've seen are more reactive than proactive meaning that they react to a problem after it occurs as opposed to preventing the problem to begin with.

That is until now.

Services are now offering security measures that prevent anyone from opening credit accounts without your personal verification and typically range between $100 - $150 per year for this credit monitoring service. A small price to pay compared to the cost to repair damage done by the identity thieves, which can literally cost a consumer thousands of dollars, not to mention time and the affect it has on your credit score.

And a new market is born. Your credit, what was once a closely guarded secret now has become something that can be quite easy to steal. You NEED protection. You are 'at risk" of becoming a victim. We've heard all the marketing taglines and yes we agree that we need to do something. It has become a common occurrence to hear on the nightly news that our personal information is being compromised. Databases are being hacked into and computers are being stolen. Also, identity thieves are coming up with new ways to get your personal information all the time.