University

They have no face. They have no name. They have no guilt. But the damage they do goes on long after the deeds are done. They are identity thieves.

If you haven't had the pleasure of their company, let me tell you how disarming a host they can be.

For over five years, I have had to pursue the hidden paths of redemption in the labyrinths of corporate America to find the person and the department that will reverse this erroneous transaction. In most cases, it has taken over 6 months to reach the right party and then another six months to get the record expunged from the credit reports.

In the last year, I had the fortune, that's right, fortune to speak to a collection agency representative who told me what process to follow to resolve the issue. For the first time, someone at the agency actually believed me when I said the bill was not mine. He told me that I needed to go to the local police department and file a police report on the theft. Somehow it never occurred to me that it was a crime reportable to a local police department. An annoyance, yes, but a crime, no. Then, I realized that just because there was no visible bloodshed or no apparent loss of property, there was indeed a crime committed. And the cost to me was immeasurable. Every time I go to apply for credit for a business transaction or a personal transaction, I am initially told that the credit reports are not good and I am denied the credit. Depending on the level of the relationship, be it arm's length, or the impersonal corporate credit department, will determine whether or not the credit will be extended to me. Is that fair? Maybe, maybe not.

In our culture, we still honor the paradigm of pay-as-you-go. Debt is a bad thing. People with bad credit ratings are losers. That being so, then how do you convince a potential lender to disbelieve what the credit reports say about you? Trust me, that is a very hard thing to do.

Identity theft is the fastest growing crime in America. With the increased use of credit cards to purchase products over the Internet and the increased use of debit cards in

lieu of checks, the opportunity for this type of thievery is ripe. And so the unscrupulous among us take advantage of that chink in the armor.

The current advertisement on TV in reference to the neighbor who looks in the garbage can and warns us that someone could be stealing your most precious commodity, your identity, isn't kidding. The use of a shredder for all documents that have your names and addresses on them is imperative. OK, so you never saw anyone rifling through your garbage can, but how many of us are present when the refuse haulers are picking up and delivering the trash to the landfill? Do you know for certain that they are not on the take to a ring of thieves who pay the trash haulers to find just that type of info? If you were making minimum wage and someone offered you hundreds of dollars for simply peeling off the mailing labels of the recycled magazines and sales literature, wouldn't you be interested?

And when you give your credit card information over the phone to a hotel clerk in a city where they do not know you from Adam, what is preventing that clerk from passing on your information to a group of hoodlums in another country who have ready buyers for that information? (That's what happened to me in 1999 in New York City.)

"Let's be careful out there!" Use a shredder to decimate anything that has account information on it. That includes investment account statements, pay stubs, credit card bills, loan statements, doctor's offices receipts, and any other telling information. Your identity is a very precious commodity. Keep it safe.