What Is An Accurate Identity Theft Definition?An Identity Theft definition in the Webster's New Millenium Dictionary is this: - noun - the stealing of a person's financial information, esp. credit cards and Social Security number, with the intention of using that data to commit fraud and create a phony persona As descriptions go, that is pretty sparse, but it is a dictionary after all. ID theft and fraud can actually be very complicated both to commit, describe and escape. It is this complexity that offers the fraudster an opportunity. A very large portion of the population have little or no idea how this type of crime is committed. This makes it easier for the criminal than might otherwise be the case. If you don't really know what something is, how do you defend against it? Technically challenged This is complicated still further by the different types of frauds that can be committed and by the rapidly changing technology that can be used to separate a person from their personal financial information. There are some methods that involving accessing a person's computer and obtaining passwords and access information, or using some of the inherent weaknesses in the internet. Others involve attacking companies computer and database systems to get access to the information that they hold about us, whether we know about it (like banks and insurance companies) or not . There are others that involve copying credit cards and using the fakes to make purchases and there are the "old fashioned" methods that involve things like intercepting a credit card in the postal system. All of this means that a firm and definitive identity theft definition is difficult to offer. The only real certainties are that the costs can be high and the problems it causes can be very significant. Therefore, instead of trying, and probably failing, to describe these crimes in a few sentences, we are devoting a number of pages of the site to descriptions. This will allow much greater explanation and hopefully enable you, our readers to understand what you might be up against more fully. Additionally, it might be helpful for American readers to visit this page by the United States' Federal Trade Commission . It might be most useful if this discussion is started with a look at
identity theft history
or
identity theft basics
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