[QUOTE=DesertDog]
Thank you for that link, samclem. As soon as I saw the title, I headed for the New Times site to dig the article up. To summarize the six-page article:
[list][li]AmEx is after $154,000 run up on a card in his father’s name, a card his father says he knows nothing about. The card’s bills were going to one of his business addresses, not his father.[/li][/QUOTE]
I like the comment the author made about that. That means that Maynord himself is an identity theif.
ID Theft sometimes it really seems like one of those things where the media finds a heartbreaking story or two, and runs it into the ground. They throw some number out there like “3 million people a year are vitcims” and people freak out, and credit card companies start using “identity theft protection” as a marketing slogan.
I’ve looked at the government report on ID theft. So much of it sounds like a family member who took a credit card.
Other than that, a big part of “identity theft” is employees, or owners, of businesses where you’ve used a credit card using that credit card. Those two things make up about 95% of ID theft.
When someone does set up new accounts in your name, it’s typically someone you know, not someone prowling through your trash looking for information.
I don’t even know anyone who knows anyone who has had it happen to them, but people go on shredding documents, and worrying about their SSN, and (I guess) subscribing to services that will prevent it.
How many things can you worry about?
Odds are low that you’ll ever have it happen.
Odds are lower if you use a modicum of good sense in who you transact with.
Odds are even lower if you don’t associate with losers.
Here’s the big report. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, and I’m not saying it’s not bad if it does happen.
But, it’s certainly not common enough, or disastrous enough if it does happen, to make it worth $120 a year to protect against, even if lifelock was legit.