Identity Theft By Family And Friends

This may be a surprise to most people but the reported monetary loss from Identity Theft committed by family members is often much higher than the other forms of Identity Theft. There are many reasons for this but I firmly believe that the biggest factor is TRUST. Trust in that the victim has absolutely no problem giving out the necessary information to the so-called trusted family member so that it gives the thief easy access and the opportunity to inflict the financial damage.Motivated by greed, jealousy or an entitlement attitude the crime usually starts out quite innocently enough by doing a few “errands” for the victim. The thief over time gains access to accounts and what started as just doing a favor for the victim gradually grows out of control.When the victim gives access to their ATM card to the family member that commits ID theft against them the chances of getting the money back are very slim if at all possible as banks, in which cash withdrawal required a PIN code, will not be as forgiving to refund the money as they would for an unauthorized credit card transaction.When these favors are a regular occurrence the amount of money that is taken by the Identity Thief incrementally increases as time passes. They might justify the money that they take as a “Fee” for their services. And over time the “Fee” increases. Eventually the routine of going on these errands is such that they, the thief, begin to rationalize the taking of this money. So when it gets to this point the only direction that the situation goes is downhill until the whole mess is discovered.I spoke about this in earlier articles but Drivers License Identity Theft is also prevalent in a “family or friend” situations. Now, when I think about this type of Identity Theft, it would have been very easy for me to commit as I was growing up. While growing up people would ask if my brother, who was 4 years older than me, and I where twins? I did not do this but taking advantage of this situation would have been very easy for me as my brother gave me “driving privileges” of his vehicles. How easy would it be for me to give his name and information to law enforcement if I were to be stopped for a moving violation? Which is why I think that people that do commit this crime is because of the ease of opportunity.Its obvious folks, but the bottom line here is don’t allow yourself access by other people unless you monitor their activity like a hawk. I hope these articles will help you and others with a better understanding as to the different areas of what Identity Theft is.