Wen Guang Li
AMM110.0084
Prof. Blumberg
October 31, 2009
Assignment #5
Before learning the knowledge of the identity theft, I also heard some fraudful
cases about identity theft, and those cases always have a similar characteristic, which
is thieves steal money from victims’ bank accounts. One of my cousins told me that
he also suffered identity theft when he paid bills on-line, and he lost over five
thousand dollars. Therefore, I always simply thought that indentity theft just is that
thieves steal your identities and take your money from your bank accounts.
After reading the knowledge of the identity theft, I clearly know that thieves not
just steal your money from your bank accounts, they also commit other fraud. For
example, they can use your identity to open new credit card and phone accounts, they
can take out a loan with your identity, they can get a driver’s license, official ID,
medical services, government benefits or a job by using your identity, and they even
give your identity to the police when they get arrested. Thieves have so many
different approaches to get benefits by using victim’s identity. It seems uncanny.
Identity theft really can bring huge negative effects to victims.
Therefore, we have to be very careful when we use personal information because
thieves can steal our identity with many methods. There are some ways that even
seem unbelievable. Each month, we can receive some bills. After we pay those biils,
we may throw those bills to garbage bins directly. However, thieves may rummage
through trash looking for your bills and getting your personal information. It really
can give us a big shake. In addition, we often face that filing some personal
information when we apply for a new account on-line. Especially for some bank or
financial accounts, we need to provide detailed personal information. However,
thieves may pretent to be financial institutions or companies and send spam messages
to get us to reveal identities. If we aren’t careful, thieves will easily get our detailed
identity. It is really very dangerous, and it will hurt us deeply.
Thieves are able to steal everyone’s identity if we lack the relative knowledge of
the identity theft, and we don’t pay attention to protect our personal identity.
Therefore, awareness is an effective weapon against many forms of identity theft.
Awareness makes us know throwing bills to garbage bins is dangerous. Awareness
makes us know that installing anti-virus and firewall softare into computers is
necessary and important. Awareness makes us not easily provide personal information
on-line. When we pay attention to protect our personal information in daily life, it can
immensely prevent identity theft from happening. In addition, awareness makes us
know what to do if personal identity is stolen. For example, we must immediately fill
out a police report, notify creditors, or dispute any unauthorized transactions to restore
our good name. Actually, we’d better monitor personal accounts each month or
personal credit reports on a regular basis because many victims know that personal
identity is stolen only after some damages have been done.
In short, learning the information of identity theft deeply is an effective weapon
to avoid that personal identity is stolen. For me, I also will use personal information
carefully in any way from now on.