Comments on: Child Identity Theft Is On The Increase

By: Douglas

Douglas — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 07:33:32 +0000

An investigative report I watched indicated that identity thieves are not necessarily an isolated incident whereby a mischievous hacker gets your credit card number and then tries to buy all he / she can till the card maxes out. While this may be the case at times, everyone should beware of small innocuous charges on your credit card statement that you do not recognize. The reason is because identity theft is now one of the most lucrative profit streams for organized crime. This includes the Mexican and Russian mafia as well as the other well known mafias. And the way they do it is pretty slick. Instead of maxing out credit cards, they charge small amounts of five to fifteen dollars on hundreds or thousands of credit cards belonging to their victims. That way, they can continue to charge small amounts every month, most of which go unnoticed or ignored and this creates a recurring revenue stream of hundreds of thousands of dollars each month for them. So pay close attention to your monthly statement and change your card if you see even one small charge you did not make yourself.

By: Gary

Gary — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 08:15:44 +0000

It is about time people in general stop being nave about what is really going on in the world. Case and point: I watched an episode of the critically acclaimed investigative show, “Decoded, which airs on the History channel. The episode I saw was jaw dropping as they investigated the state of “the Mob and organized crime. What they uncovered was shocking. No longer is the mob operating overtly by strong arming and extorting local store owners, like what you see in 1930′s and 1970′s movies. Today, the mob is invisible and anonymous and their reach is global because they are at the forefront of all of the most lucrative cyberspace crimes, including the largest type of online crime, identity theft. The investigative team discovered that the mob is paying the most elite computer hackers to find the data by breaking through firewalls of large companies and by stealing individuals’ identities, including that of your children. They don’t just want establish new credit from identities, they could already be stealing from you and you don’t even know it. Consider this: Once a leading criminal organization has your credit cards, they don’t necessarily max those out. They may spend five or ten dollars, which may go undetected. Multiply that by ten thousand victims and you begin to see the kind of money they are stealthily stealing. So the next time you see a small charge on your credit card statement, realize that you may be already be a victim.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 00:00:44 +0000

This just makes me sick to my stomach. I can not imagine why you would do this to a poor child and possibly ruin that child’s life no less. All just so you can buy something that you probably don’t need. How do these people sleep at night knowing what they have done? Their conscience will be seared as with an iron. I guess that is my answer to why and how they can do these things.

By: Danielle

Danielle — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:20:10 +0000

This is a sign of the times in which we live. I mean the information age. Never before has the theft of data been so expedient and simple. Today, we have rampant piracy of intellectual property and rights protected media which gets leaked sometimes even before its scheduled release date. And now we have this growing trend. I recall reading a graphic novel back in the early 1980′s which depicted a time when everyone would be identified and completely tracked by their identification number. This comic portrayed an apocalyptic time when the government played god by maintaining a tight reign over its citizens. Back then, it seemed like an end of days scenario, but when I really think about it, that comic was actually describing the world we live in today. And that’s the fascinating thing about imagining the past or the future. When you try to picture a different time, it seems more alarming than the reality as it happens. Change happens so subtly that you don’t see it coming until it is here. And those last days before the end of the world seem to be here.

By: Larry

Larry — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 21:20:11 +0000

Maybe we shouldn’t get an identity until it is time for us to start using it at age eighteen or sixteen when you can get a drivers license and a job for the first time. I think that would prevent a lot of this then you wouldn’t have to deal with that problem until you were an adult when you could protect it yourself. As a parent I would really appreciate it if you would post anything we can do to stop this.

By: Dirk

Dirk — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 19:45:22 +0000

If you catch this happening, depending on how long this has been going on, is there any way at all to go back and fix their identity so that they don’t have to suffer the things you mentioned in your post, like the first time they go to buy a car, that would be so embarrassing for them? Sometimes the immoral actions of people really are shocking and sickening at the same time.

By: Phoebe

Phoebe — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 19:30:22 +0000

We have been through this before with my husband, he had to file a report with the credit bureau, the police department and the company that the person was trying to buy something from. So it took us a lot of leg work and phone calls to explain this to everybody and get it set up to block it from continuing to happen. How hard will it be to do this for a child?

By: Aaron

Aaron — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 18:45:23 +0000

So here we have a bunch of criminals again ruining a child’s adult life before they even get there. This is absolutely heart breaking, a friend of mine had his identity stolen about six months ago and found out about it when they tried to purchase something. How long could this go on before you even found out about it with a child? As a people what can we do to stop this?

By: Iola

Iola — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 18:45:23 +0000

We need to do something different as far as our kids are concerned there are far too many ways to prey on them. Is there nothing sacred anymore? Why would you purposely target a child just for your benefit? As you can tell this makes me a little more than angry. These people are going out and getting credit cards, or whatever they do with someone else’s identity to buy stuff that means nothing.

By: Nicholas

Nicholas — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 18:15:22 +0000

A study was just released that indicates that one in three younger persons will get arrested by the age of twenty three, and setting the course for a lifetime of destructive behavior. I won’t even try to understand how they are able to come to that conclusion, but it does make me wonder how it may affect your decision to engage in deviant criminal behavior if you as a teenager, lean that you have become the victim of identity theft. Does this make you feel jaded and more susceptible to break the law? Does it make you bitter or angry and compel you to take advantage of someone when the opportunity presents itself, because you were a victim and want some sort of pay back?