The Prevalence of Identity Theft in the Community

The Prevalence of Identity Theft in the Community
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The Prevalence of Identity Theft in The Community
Introduction
In the advent of the current new and improved technology, many developments have been implemented in the way customers or consumers make their purchases. There is a lot of online purchases or transactions being made. It is because of this that there is need for more data to reveal the real or actual identity of the person making the purchases in this virtual form of transactions. With an abundance of data that is delivered, some ambitious hackers can have a hay day accessing it and use the data for their ill motives to loot money from unsuspecting customers. Identity theft happens when someone decides to assume another person’s identity with the express aim of gaining personally in a financial sense (Lacey & Cuganesan, 2004). According to studies, it is the number one crime in America today with an identity being stolen after every 2 seconds. Records indicate that approximately 3.6 million adults have lost their cash in this syndicate (scranton.edu, 2009). On average, US$3,000 is fleeced per incident (scranton.edu, 2009). Most of this crime is perpetrated by close family members or allies who are close to the affected (scranton.edu, 2009). This paper seeks to explore more on the nature of identity theft and make an analysis of how it is done, by whom and also establish the necessary actions the courts of law can undertake to mitigate the menace.
Methods on How Someone’s Identity Can Be Stolen
It all begins whenever an individual loses personal effects that have details about that person. If at all the vital documents fall into the hands of the wrong person who has the ability to impersonate the individual, hell breaks loose. These thieves gather enough relevant data on the person they are targeting using various tricks. They are usually quiet criminals who operate swiftly but carefully. The targeted person might even be in the dark that his/her identity has been stolen for even a period of 6 months before noticing any foul play in his finances (scranton.edu, 2009).
Some of the common examples are situations such as Phishing. This is a situation when someone can use a company that stamps authority in the society to invite an individual to participate in an activity. It here that the targeted individual will be asked for personal information such as the social security number, bank details such as the account number, or in some cases a personal password. This information will then be used to do the fleecing work categorically (Anderson, Durbin, & Salinger, 2008).
The second case is when personal documents are stolen with the express purpose to obtain personal information. It could be a wallet that contains vital details which could be easily compromised. This is called basic theft and it is common in the US. Closely linked to this, there is another one called dumpster diving. It involves thieves ravaging through another person’s garbage in the quest to find any personal documents or information such as credit card details. Some thieves target mail boxes and flee with the contents there in (Anderson, Durbin, & Salinger, 2008).
An...