Wall Street Journal. Complete Identity Theft Guidebook A Step-by-step Plan for Untangling Yourself from the Fastest Growing Crime in America

CHAPTER 1 What Is Identity Theft, Anyway? Jerome Powell remembers being irritated with himself for not paying closer attention to his driving. When the Mountain View, Colorado, police car's blue lights came on behind him, Powell, a government contractor, had just driven through a yellow light as it turned red. Now he would be late for his next appointment. He apologized to the officer and handed over his driver's license and insurance information. He watched in his rearview mirror as the officer radioed from his cruiser for a license check. It seemed to be taking a long time to write a routine ticket. Finally, the officer approached Powell's window and told him to get out of the car. Powell was stunned to find himself under arrest on two outstanding felony warrants. He was shocked and humiliated as the officer made him put his hands behind his back and then cuffed him and read him his Miranda rights. The Navy veteran spent hours in jail, shaking from fear that he might wind up charged with a crime he didn't commit. The warrants for his arrest were issued in 2003, when a thief used Powell's driver's license to buy more than $10,000 in computer equipment and other items. Despite overwhelming evidence that it was a case of identity theftthe stolen goods were delivered to the apartment of a career criminal who bore no resemblance at all to Powellhe was forced to spend several thousand dollars to post bond and get a lawyer to clear his name. Jerome Powell's unnerving and expensive experience is a true case of identity theftthe thief used Powell's driver's license to impersonate Powell. Not to be picky about it, but what the media and most people call "identity theft" is actually an umbrella term for two different crimes: identity theft and identity fraud. As in Powell's case, identity theft occurs when criminals steal personal information and use it to impersonate the victim. An illegal immigrant using a stolen Social Security card to get a job is a good example of such an impersonation, as is a driver who has lost his or her license because of multiple convictions for driving while intoxicated and buys a fake driver's license from an underground dealer containing the name and information of an identity-theft victim. True identity theft accounts for about a third of the 685,000 identity crime complaints reported to the Federal Trade Commission in 2005. Far more common is identity fraud. It happens when thieves obtain a victim's sensitive personal information to steal money from bank accounts, buy goods and services with existing credit-card accounts or use the data to open new credit lines. The shocking thing is that these types of criminals are frequently people we know. Such betrayals by family or close friends are emotionally draining and almost certainly underreported since victims often find it difficult to report the crime or feel pressured by family members to keep the theft quiet. Not Abigail Kelly. Abigail had given her Social Security number to her sister Delia after Delia said she was going to make Abigail the beneficiary of her life-insurance policy. Delia promptly used Abigail's information to open fraudulent credit and utility accounts. As a result, Abigail not only suffered damage to her credit history, but she didn't get the job after an employee background check turned up an arrest warrant for an unpaid home heating bill in her name in Maine. Abigail had never even been to Maine. But Delia lived there. Abigail later learned that her sister was behind numerous accounts opened in her name, though Delia wasn't arrested or charged with any crime. Local law enforcement refused to get involved in what looked like a family dispute, so Abigail wound up suing her sister in civCullen, Terri is the author of 'Wall Street Journal. Complete Identity Theft Guidebook A Step-by-step Plan for Untangling Yourself from the Fastest Growing Crime in America', published 2007 under ISBN 9780307338532 and ISBN 0307338533.