Does anyone use anything else, I am curious given all the media coverage of identity theft.

I use one of Lifelock's competitor. Its roughly $10 a month, but it gives me a piece of mind. I have been lucky as I have not had any trouble, but not sure its really because I purchased a protection safety net.

These identity theft stories keep you on your toes. Have you all ever tried something like Lifelock as a means of protection? Does it seem worth it? The credit cards I use and the banks I frequent are supposed to watch out for fraud, but I wonder if they'd be quick enough to stop a major money leak.

I don't know if you'd count it as identity theft, but a colleague of mine just had his details stolen from his online CV. Apparently LinkedIn, even if private, contains enough data from someone to scrape a work history and make up a CV using his work history as theirs. What happened was inevitable: the new employer phoned his current one to check references and the whole thing came to light. I am amazed people are that blatant about it though. How did he think he would get away with it?

You would be surprised, it can be extremely profitable. Some hackers just buy and sell information. Others create credit cards, spend as much as they can quickly and disregard it. Its a law of numbers. if 1,000,000 IDs get hacked, and 10,000 credit cards get opened and spend $500, you are still talking about $5 million there.

Egghead wrote: I don't quite get how the identity thieves profit from that kind of act. I mean, they must have procured documents to open bank accounts under the fake names, and I am sure they don't come cheap. It doesn't seem like much of a return for the effort and brain power they must put into it.

You want something scary, there was a piece about it in a financial newsletter I get this morning. Apparently the details cost about 3-5cents an identity, and get bought in bulk. I guess if the thieves already have the details and access to someone's legit bank account, or can answer ID questions, they might be able to open something online without documents. At that price they only need a couple of IDs to pan out to make a profit.

Thanks for the story TISHBEL! You don't often hear of a identity theft story that goes so smoothly for the person whose identity was stolen.

Sometimes the thieves don't even buy details. My identity was never stolen, but in the early days of online banking we had bailiffs turn up at the door with no warning at our first apartment. Someone had opened a bank account using our address, but a different name, phone number, and email address and then defaulted badly on it. We'd never heard of this person or met them, but once we proved we owned the house and had never heard of him, the bailiffs said sorry and went away. We had a couple of phone calls from the bank to tidy up details, but it was cleared up within a month. I'm really glad I was home. Imagine if they'd turned up when I wasn't!

They actually make more money selling this information in bulk. They steal identities information from a bank, getting 100s of names, and then sell those across the internet to people who buy them and eventually use it to set up fake accounts. There is a large underground network for these where people can make good money.

I don't quite get how the identity thieves profit from that kind of act. I mean, they must have procured documents to open bank accounts under the fake names, and I am sure they don't come cheap. It doesn't seem like much of a return for the effort and brain power they must put into it.

My best friend and her husband have had their identities stolen a number of times. The last time, it was someone on the other side of the country mailing out fraudulent checks in their names to people and trying to get them to cash them. The reason they found out about it was because the cops actually showed up at her house. They didn't have anything stolen that time other than their names, but it took about a year to clear it up completely.

He did. I have lost touch with him, but it ended up in the papers, and he was sent to prison for what I assume a long time.

Did the neighbor get arrested and prosecuted? Having that documentation should be making things easier on your colleague. I'm surprised it's taking him so long in recovery, too. The average time spent recovering is about a year in most cases.

That is shocking, yet it makes sense that a neighbor could do it. They probably have easier access to things like your post, or old receipts if they are thrown into the garbage intact. Did your colleague manage to recover any of the cash?

Who has some interesting stories about their identity being stolen? I have a colleague I work with that had his identity stolen and found out it was his next door neighbor who racked up over $150,000 of credit card debt. He was been dealing with it to this day (over 4 years)