Identity theft is a chronic and growing field of industry for crafty criminals.  Whereas once criminal were content to pickpocket or rob banks, the advancement of the Information Age has changed the very nature of theft.  If John Dillinger had lived in these days, who knows how he might have put his criminal mind to use.  Would he have devised a skimming program to lift private and personal information off unsecured websites?  Or would he have gone through his neighbor’s garbage looking for an unshredded credit card offer and opened a bank account in the neighbor’s name.  The fact is, criminals are stealing the identities of their victims and doing wrong in their names.  There are some frightening statistics out there and there is a lot we can learn just by knowing some of those statistics.  For example, according to the Javelin Strategy and Research Group, in 2008, the number of victims of identity theft rose to 10 million.  Also according to that same group, 2009 saw that one in every 10 consumers in the United States had already experienced the pain and suffering of identity theft.  The United States Department of Justice reported in 2005 that 1.6 million homes in the United States had experienced some kind of financial fraud other than that of credit cards.  They also reported that households in which the members made a combined income of over $70,000 were twice as likely to feel the sting of identity theft than those households whose combined income was less than $50,000.  A mere 7% of those that reported their identities having been stolen found themselves victims to medical identity theft, meaning that the criminals stole their personal and highly sensitive information with the intent to get medical services, prescription medication, or to be treated by doctors and hospitals with the burden of payment going to the victim.

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