Identity Crisis

2 Pages 408 Words

Identity Crisis


When you think of identity theft do you think of the credit card commercials with the woman speaking with the mans voice? Does the internet come to mind? There are many different forms of identity theft and it happens every day to people all over the world.
There are numerous scams involving identity theft, some more obvious then others, but all just as serious. Some forms of identity theft are pop-ups on the internet that offer you a free prize if you add you billing information, some are crooked companies that sell your information to other companies and some are as simple is paying a bill on the internet and someone hacking into your information.
On December 24th 2004 I had just received a new cell phone as an early Christmas present. I was riding in the car on a long eight hour trip to New York, I started getting bored so I decided to order some new ring tones. Thinking nothing of giving Nextel my debit card information over the internet on my cell phone I did. When we returned home the 26th we had a message on the answering machine saying thirty dollars had been taken out of my account by Nextel. Wondering why so much was withdrawn from my account I called Nextel and spent an hour on the phone to find out three other cell phones with numbers from other states had been purchasing ring tones using my debit card number. I was shocked knowing that I had not given my card number out to anyone else, I called the bank up asking for help. Two more hours later I had everything straightened out, Nextel was refunding my money, and a new card was being sent to me in the mail.
The Internet isn’t the only place identity theft occurs; often enough it is stolen over the phone, through the mail, and numerous other ways. Last year many North Carolinians had their identities stolen through “donate to the policeman’s ball” on the telephone and other fake charity organizations.
There are new laws being put into ...