Argumentative Essay Why Identity Theft Is A Real Problem

Everyday young people go about their lives in pure ignorant bliss when it comes to their credit cards. They do not know the significance of the little card they keep in their wallet. The youth of today sometimes only think of it as a source of money. There is so much more to these little pieces of plastic. It is extremely important for young adults to understand the advantages and disadvantages of owning a credit card before they apply for one. When thinking about the advantages of possessing credit cards, it is only natural to think of the perks and the ability to build credit. Also it is always necessary for a young person to know that they may have to face crippling debt and the possibility of identity theft when owning a credit card.
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Credit cards are a very well known way for someone to steal another person’s identity. One way can be through physically taking the card, which one might consider the old fashioned way. Watson who wrote Why Identity Theft Is a Real Problem once said “eight out of ten Americans report being worried about identity theft”. It is such a large issue that people are actually afraid it will happen to them. When a credit card is stolen from a cardholder, sometimes they do not or will not report the incident right away. Some believe they have misplaced their card, others are embarrassed by the fact they allowed another person to steal something that belongs to them. One mistake made regularly by consumers is failing to report their card has been lost or stolen in the hopes that they just misplaced the card, stated by ITCR. It is tremendously important for the user to always report the incident after it has occured. Another form of identity theft is when the actual information is stolen. According to Watson who wrote Why Identity Theft Is a Real Problem, there was a survey done where more than half of the one thousand adults stated that they or a member of their household had already been a victim of identity theft, online fraud or had personal data stolen form a business or government data breach. The thing that is extraordinary is that it was more than half of the adults who participated in this survey had this happen to them. That is quite a bit of people who have become a victim of identity theft. This information that is stolen is not always used by just one person. Money Tips who wrote What Identity Thieves Do with Stolen Credit Cards, stated that if credit card information is stolen as part of a large breach, it is more likely to be sold as least once. The key word in that sentence is least. A cardholder’s information can be sold more than once to many different people. That means unknown charges, major