Identity theft is the fastest growing crime in America! Over 12.7 percent of Americans reported they were victims of Identity Theft in the last five years! The misuse of existing credit card accounts has increased to over 71 percent in the last two years. Over all, Identity Theft has increased over 41 percent in the same period.

Identity Theft is a massive crime and it is virtually without risk. Unbelievably, only 25 percent of Identity Theft victims report this crime to the police.

In 2002, estimated financial losses to American businesses were over $33 billion dollars. The average victim lost over $10,200.00, and that does not begin to include the cost needed to recover from the abuse. On average a victim needed over 30 hours to recover from the theft. Significantly, the sooner the theft was discovered, the less the monetary damage and the quicker the recovery.

Overall, the amount of time needed for resolution increased as the length of time required for discovery increased. Seventy-six percent of the victims who discovered the theft within one month took less than 10 hours to resolve the issue. When the theft was discovered between one and five months only 59 percent were able to resolve the problem within ten hours. For those that discovered the theft more than six months after the event, less than 20 percent were able to reach a resolution in less than 10 hours.

Clearly, time is a critical component in protecting yourself and recovering from Identity Theft. Quick discovery can help reduce the amount of monetary damage AND the number of problems you may encounter when attempting to clean up the resulting mess!

Identity theft is more like a family of crimes. It takes several different forms.

New Account Fraud -

The most common form of Identity Theft is when the criminal obtains your personal information and uses it to obtain credit in your name.

Existing Account Fraud -

The second category concerns misuse of existing accounts. Again, the same documentation needed to open new accounts can be used to access the victim