Identity theft are fast spreading across the United States of America with more or less 9 million victims every year. It is quite hard for the victims to find the culprit of the identity theft because the victims are usually clueless on how their personal information were obtained.
How they do it
Identity thieves obtain fraudulent driver’s license, debit or credit cards, and e-mail address. They could also use the victim’s information to apply for loans, apply for employment, shop and even remove money from your bank account. This can cause the victims to be charged or deducted thousands of dollars from their bank accounts without them even knowing it. Worse comes to worst, these identity thieves could pose as the victims to commit crimes. They could commit serious crime using the victim’s name which could cause the victim to be arrested. These are the most common ways on how identity thieves get the victim’s account information:
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Pretexting – the thief would usually get the victim’s information and sell it to other people or company. Most of the people who commit this kind of stealing are those that are close to the victim.
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Phishing – this is the type of stealing when a person will come near you, pretend to be a representative of a financial company, and will persuade you to give your personal information such as “Hurry! Give us your information and claim your BMW”
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Dumpster Diving – people who commit this way of stealing are quite desperate because they go through the garbage of the victims to look for bills and other important files with the victim’s personal information.
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Skimming – this is like hacking because thieves use a special device to track your credit/debit cards
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Old-fashioned Stealing – stereotypical ways of stealing like getting the wallet, cell phone, files, and even online accounts of the victim.
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Changing Your Address – this is also one way for thieves to use the files that you left in your past residence.
Naming the Suspects
Most of the suspects in this case are those people who have easy access to the victim’s information like friends, neighbors, family members, and co-workers. However in some cases, total strangers were the real culprit.
If you are one of the suspects in an identity theft case, you need a very competent criminal defense lawyer Las Vegas to have the case dismissed.
Contact a criminal defense attorney for a legal counsel about Theft crimes.