Points to Know on Identity Theft

For the last seven years, the majority of citizen complaints to the Federal Trade Commission's involved identity theft and fraud issues.

Most recorded was credit card fraud. Nearly 250,000 of the complaints were related to identity theft.

The overall amount of loss was listed at $1.1 billion dollars worth of complaints, resulting in a single person losing approximately $500. This is just an estimate considering how much of the theft and fraud go unreported.

Americans concerned about identity theft and credit card fraud are quickly becoming the majority across the country.

A significant percentage of identity theft victims are taken advantage of by people they know, even friends and family, according to the industry-funded Identity Theft Assistance Center (ITAC).

The most difficult fraudsters to apprehend are those overseas. It is the most significant monetary loss as the likelihood of recouping the funds is low, especially when dealing with third world countries, where identity thieves rarely stay in one place.

"Synthetic identity theft" causes some alarm as well. It involves criminals creating identities using one person's name and another person's Social Security number. Essentially, this leaves a ghost in the system, one with only parts of your identity and parts of someone else's.

Collectors, however, cannot avoid arriving at your door because of these ghosts. It's only pieces of your information, which makes it difficult for you to track in advance and easy for the thieves to get away with fraud.