IDENTITY THEFT - Do you really know what it is? Published Sept. 5, 2007 By Jo Lyn Unangst ALTUS AFB -- You've seen those silly credit card commercials where she has the voice of him or he has the voice of her. Most of us relate to Identity Theft associated with a stolen credit card. The commercials make us laugh but Identity Theft is no laughing matter. You can't just make a phone call & make it all go away. It can take weeks or even years to clear up your good name. For some, it NEVER goes away. No matter who you are or your economic status, Identity Theft knows NO boundaries. Did you know Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, Michael Eisner, Ted Turner & Martha Stewart were all part of the world's largest Identity Theft scam by one individual which has been called the crime of the 21st century. The thief was Abraham Abdallah, a 32 year old bus boy, high school dropout & career petty criminal from Brooklyn, New York. Abdallah used a 2001 special magazine issue of Forbes 400 most wealthiest people & was able to access the accounts of nearly 200 people by using a little ingenuity & technical savvy. For six months he had obtained access to tens of billions of dollars using a cell phone, some voice mailboxes & free email accounts, fast talking his way through receptionists & security questions. Today identity thieves can start using your personal information in under 15 seconds after gaining access to it half a world away. Technology has made it easier for criminals to commit this crime. But it's not just a crime of technology. Old-fashion paper files & records with your personal information has now become more valuable than Grandma's silver or Auntie's emerald brooch. The potential yield far outweighs the value of tangible goods! Around March 21, 2007 Radio Shack Corp. near Corpus Christi, TX dumped thousands of customer records & receipts in a dumpster behind the store that contained SSN, credit & debit information, names, addresses & phone numbers. Fines up to $500 could be brought against Radio Shack for EACH abandoned record. According to Tom Willis, also an Identity Theft Protection and Restoration professional, "Only one in 700 identity thieves is usually prosecuted. To say it has become a very lucrative business is an understatement." Identity Theft has passed drug trafficking as the #1 U.S. crime. Since 2003 there has been over a 50% increase. In the last 25 months there have been over 150 million data breaches from stolen lap tops, paper files, back up tapes, hacking, etc. TJ Maxx recently revealed over 45.7 million customer's personal information has been compromised due to hacking. No matter how much control you have in protecting your personal information in your own home, you have no control how it's handled in your doctor's offices, your employers, everywhere you conduct business & even government agencies such as the court house, the DMV, the SSA, plus 1000s of data bases. No one is exempt from the potential risk of Identity Theft. Education and awareness is key say Mr Willis. Start by taking a proactive approach in safeguarding your information. For starters, do you know what's in your wallet? If it were lost or stolen would you know immediately who you need to contact? TIP: Photocopy the front & back of your wallet's contents & store it in a secure place. Contacting all the businesses or agencies necessary is a lot easier when you don't have to guess what the contents are & you'll know exactly whom to call. Over the course of the next few months, I will share with you the 5 types of Identity Theft - Financial, Medical, Drivers License, Social Security & Criminal or True Name & the impact it can have on your life if you become a victim of Identity Theft. I'll leave you with this question: do you use your smoke alarm only on weekends? No, of course not! You expect to be notified within seconds of a potential catastrophic event, warning you to take appropriate action. Shouldn't you be as vigilant in protecting your identity as this crime continues to be the number one complaint with the FTC? Jo Lyn Unangst is a Certified Identity Theft Risk Management Specialist with the Leadership Development Institute. LDI will present a session as part of the continuing professional development program at Altus AFB.