The Importance Of Identit Identity Theft

According to the Federal Trade Commission, identity theft occurs when “someone uses your Social Security number or other personal information to open new accounts, make purchases, or get a tax refund” (“Identity Theft,” 2015). Identity theft does not only occur with opening new accounts, but can also encompass gaining access to existing accounts opened by the real individual. This crime is very prevalent and it seems that there is not a downward trend of those affected by it. This is a topic that I encounter every day in my current professional field as a Transaction Monitoring Associate for a bank and it interests me because it is something that everyone should be aware of in order to prevent it from happening to them as much as possible. …show more content…
Some of the most popular ways that a person’s identity is stolen is from the criminal going through the victim’s trash, stealing mail, phishing, or skimming. The first two ways are obvious, but the other two terms may not be familiar to everyone. Phishing is when the criminal poses as someone else, from an individual that works at a bank to law enforcement, in order to gain information from the victim through phone calls or e-mail. Skimming occurs when the criminal places a device in ATMs that gathers account information on the individuals that use it. The device is not noticeable and often would not look any different than an ATM without the device on it (Papadimitriou, 2015). These are only a few of the ways that criminals gain personal information and I can only imagine that new schemes will be created in the