Front Range Financial Consulting

Identity thieves traffic in personal information including:

• Your name, address, phone number, and date of birth
• Bank account, Social Security, PIN and credit card numbers
• Other personal information that can be used to access your protected bank accounts, online shopping accounts, credit card accounts and others. For example, you might use your mother’s maiden name, pet’s name, or children’s names or birthdays as passwords or access codes.

Your personal information can be stolen in a variety of ways.

Tactics range from simply snatching your wallet or purse to stealing documents from your trash or watching you enter numbers at an ATM or checkout counter. Another strategy is to contact you by phone, misrepresent who’s calling, and get you to give out personal information.

More sophisticated and often large-scale methods involve:

• Hacking into large computer systems and capturing personal data from accounts.
• Distributing massive spams that prompt recipients to send personal information in order to prevent some false danger or obtain a false benefit.
• Creating bogus Web sites to get users to enter account numbers or passwords.

Once thieves have obtained your personal information, they can use it to:

• Make purchases using stolen credit card numbers, or open new bank accounts and write bad checks on them.
• Create new credit lines for loans, credit card accounts, or phone service, and then not pay the bills.
• Drain your bank account through counterfeit checks, stolen credit/debit cards or fraudulent electronic transfers.
• File bankruptcy in your name to avoid paying debts or being evicted.
• Assume a new identity–yours– to avoid being prosecuted for crimes.