Identity theft is a pitfall of the modern life that we live. You can define identity theft in a number of ways, and as the definition is very flexible, some instances, which you hadn't ever thought of, may surprise you.

The most common forms of identity theft involve stealing your personal data like your social security number and passing it off as their own, using your credit card numbers and using details of your financial institutions, passing off your driver's license details as their own so that you get billed for their parking misdemeanors, and using your email to impersonate you and communicate.

Stolen identification is then used for obtaining credit, employment, purchasing things or obtaining something of value or a position of benefit. You ID may even be used by the thief to escape legal processes and penalties by passing the blame on to you. They may even use your identification to intentionally harm your reputation or your estate. So as you can see, identity theft covers many situations and it is not very easy to define identity theft.

Common Forms of Identity Theft

The most common for of identity theft is crimes committed in order to steal your money. While they might not be pointing a gun at you and taking your wallet, the result is the same.

Someone may apply for credit using your identity and your financial credentials, make purchases in your name and charge them to your accounts, or takes a loan in your name with your credit rating.

These forms of theft are usually done with credit, so this sort of identity theft does not affect you immediately and you only find out about this when you try to try to get credit yourself. You then receive a shock when you apply for a credit card or a loan or go to buy a house or a car. However, it is too late as your standing and credit ratings have been totally trashed by your impersonator.

This is often not enough for criminals and they have been known to commit serious crimes by stealing your ID and then laying all the blame on you and therefore going scot-free.

Crimes such as drunken driving, embezzlement, fraud, burglary, drug peddling, accessing pornography where it is illegal, and then even going to the extent of appearing in court and then not paying bail so that you then have an arrest warrant issued in your name.

Someone wishing to find out your personal information may easily do so by going through your trash. This is called dumpster diving.

If there are papers containing your financial data in your trash, they can use that information to impersonate you. If they manage to access your credit card statement, then you may find out too late that they have used the information to make purchases and bill you for it, and you will find out only after a month.

Skimming is also a popular technique where a store of dubious repute takes your credit card for a valid purchase and then keeps your credit card information and uses it to bill you again later. Another technique that is gaining in popularity is phishing, where a fraudulent party sends you an email impersonating an institution where you have an account and asks you for your account details. They then use this data against to impersonate you or to access your account themselves.

How to Prevent Identity Theft

As you can see, with technological changes, it has become very difficult to track, detect and define identity theft, let alone manage it.