Common Types of Identity Theft

Identity theft is classically sub divided into four categories; financial identity theft (obtaining a loan from a financial institution by impersonating someone else or making any financial transaction by impersonating someone else), criminal identity theft (a criminal identifying himself to police as some other individual when cornered for a crime), identity cloning (a criminal impersonates someone for the purpose of concealment from authorities by obtaining his/her personal details), and business/commercial identity theft (using another’s business name to obtain credit).

In case of financial identity theft, the commonest of all, the impersonator will obtain a loan from any financial institution by pretending to be the victim. He will produce accurate personal identification information to the concerned authorities (viz. Name, address, date of birth, contact number and likewise) in the form of any govt. issued document to impress upon his claim. This sort of fraud comes to light when the bank authorizing the loan notices the non receipt of repayment within the prescribed time period. As a consequence of this the victim is faultily blamed for defaulting on a loan he never actually claimed.

In case of criminal identity theft the chances of the victim getting a clean chit are very bleak. Probably the most heinous of all identity thefts, a criminal may present himself to the arresting authorities as someone else by producing either a fake ID or a stolen state issued document. In due course of time, the criminal will escape and all the subsequent summons and notices will be directed to the victim. When the victim fails to appear for any hearing in the court of law, an arrest warrant may be issued under his name. While at times, the victim may be cornered as part of background check for employment or his permits/licenses may be cancelled. It is extremely difficult to establish the true identity of the criminal and requires complete cooperation of the original arresting authorities and evidence at the scene of crime.

Identity Cloning is a means to evade an arrest for any crime, or escape creditors or other individuals. Unlike credit dependent financial theft, the cloning can go undetected for an indefinite period of time, so many persons under the garb of identity cloning continue to work illegally in foreign lands for years concealing their real identity.

In Business/Commercial theft, like financial theft, a business house or an individual uses some other’s name to obtain credit. In such transactions usually the amount of money at stake is much higher, since credit may be sought for proposed mammoth projects.

Besides, these depending on the means of identity theft, it may classified as; eavesdropping on public transactions called shoulder surfing, stealing information on computer databases (Trojan Horses, hacking), stealing mail or rummaging through rubbish containing personal information (dumpster diving),Skimming (when you unwittingly hand over your card to pay at some restaurant and likewise and they in turn copy the encrypted information on the black magnetic stripe in your card), advertising bogus job offers and sending fraudulent e-mails that lure victim to believe that they’ve won an enormous sum of money or some attractive gift hamper and in return seeking their complete contact details, infiltration of organization databases and social networking sites, are only a handful of them.