Identity theft report and good old fashioned dumpster diving!

This study, funded by the Department of Justice, kind of surprised me. Not only are some three million Americans subjected to identity theft each year, but in some of those cases (less than 20%) the thieves don't rely on the Internet.  Apparently there are thieves that prefer to still go about it the old fashioned way, by tampering with mail (rerouting it by using change of address cards and/or simply stealing mail outright), stealing credit cards and even good old dumpster diving. This study was different because it looked at identity thieves as opposed to identity theft victims and it wasn't a surprise to learn that most of the perpetrators were men and most (over 60% of them) were under age 34 and preferred to work alone in their thieving. No surprise either was the fact that most victims were strangers to the thieves. Its important to remember that lots of these crimes start with these guys getting just pieces of peoples' identifying data, and not entire documents like your driver's license or your bank card - it's much harder to know right away if you've been victimized if you're not missing any physical items. You just have to wait till you get your bank statement. That's why it's a good idea to check your statements online periodically in the interim between receiving bank generated (snail) mailed statements - that is if you're not worried about getting hacked!