With identity theft a rampant problem in the United States these days it is quite alarming to find a new form of this thievery beginning to take hold.
A particular kind of identity theft is getting the attention of law enforcement officials: Americans who alter Social Security numbers or change birth dates when applying for credit cards, phone service, car loans and credit transactions.
Identity Manipulation
The trend is called "identity manipulation" and involves switching around a few numbers or dates on credit applications.
Identity manipulation is the deliberate and inappropriate changing of some of your key identity information, such as your name, Social Security number or date of birth.
Those who engage in this practice may change just one or two digits in a Social Security number or birth date.
The result: Those individuals who hold those Social Security numbers may find themselves with bad credit, unable to obtain good terms on a loan or unqualified for government services or benefits. The perpetrators who disguise their birth dates tend to harm the businesses that provide services or products.
South Floridians Beware!
The hot bed for this type of theft is South Florida. Research has shown that the South Florida ZIP codes beginning with 330, 331 and 333 — representing parts of Miami-Dade and Broward counties — have higher than expected rates of bad credit applications that could be examples of identity manipulation. The research is based on data from 307 million Americans who applied for credit in the past seven years, which was provided by clients of ID Analytics, such as banks, credit card companies, cellphone companies and other financial institutions.
Unfortunately, South Florida also ranks high in terms of victims. Florida ranks second in the nation for fraud and identity theft complaints.
How rampant are fraud and identity issues?
More than 1.3 million consumer fraud complaints were filed in 2010, resulting in losses of about $1.7 billion. The top categories of complaints include ID theft, debt collection, Internet services and lotteries. The average loss by each victim was nearly $600.
Among Florida's 18.8 million residents, more than 92,000 complaints were filed last year — 492 complaints per 100,000 residents.
The Bottom Line
Identity theft is a threat that looms everywhere these days. Thieves may steal mail from your home, send fake email appearing to be from your bank requesting you provide personal information, and with identity manipulation, someone may simply pick your Social Security number or birth date (or those of a spouse or child) to use on a credit application.
Protect yourself as best you can. Don’t give out any personal information to anyone you are not certain needs it! The world is a scary place these days. Given that people don’t seem to want to earn a living legitimately anymore, you have to ever-so-vigilant your identity is not stolen or manipulated!