Identity theft and Penalty kicks are a lot a like.
If you watched the penalty kicks portion of the Women's World Cup Final, even though there was a chance that the goalkeepers could keep balls from going into the net, you knew it was inevitable that goals would be scored. The key to stopping them is knowing/guessing where the ball was going. Sometimes even if you know, it's tough to stop. There are spaces in the goal that a goalkeeper just can't get to.
It is the same with identity theft. We can stop identity thieves if we know where they are going to hit us. We can pay cash instead of using credit cards. If we do use credit cards, we can put freezes on them or just monitor them. The same goes for bank accounts and the bills we pay. We can shred everything ( though, watching "Burn Notice" on USA Network last week showed me that if someone wants to, they can get around that).
But if the assistant at the doctor's office is having trouble paying bills and runs with the wrong crowd, it would be easy for him/her to take your and everyone else's information and sell it to those who would use it for illicit and illegal purposes. Or the clerk at the car dealership to use your financial and personal data for him self to qualify for that house he wants. Or maybe you just lose your wallet and someone takes your driver's license info and sells it to someone who will eventually commit a crime in your name. That means the police will come to arrest you! Lifelock isn't monitoring your driver's license.
Personal data is stolen every day without our knowledge. But, unlike a lost wallet which you can report right away, most times the companies it is stolen from won't report it until a later date. They have to get their story straight first (smh).
So what can you do? In soccer, when a goal is scored, the only thing you can do is work hard to score another to equalize or go ahead before time is up. With identity theft, you have work hard to restore your identity with paperwork and phone calls. The federal government can help you. Go to http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/microsites/idtheft/. This can take anywhere from 25 to 600 hours. That's like taking three weeks off from work for a lot of people. There also are companies that will take care of it for you.
The Urgency of ID Theft Prevention
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