Scams
Is Your ID Safe?
A new website lets you discover whether you’re a likely target.
From Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, February 2010
Identity theft has been on the rise, affecting nearly ten million Americans in 2008. Most people don’t know that crucial data has been compromised until there’s evidence of its misuse. Now, some free services try to give consumers an early warning about whether they’re at risk. Our favorite, My ID Score (www.myidscore.com), from ID Analytics, scours a real-time database that includes billions of identity elements -- names, Social Security numbers, phone numbers -- to look for unusual activity. That could mean finding a Social Security number that’s attached to more than one name, for example, or several credit-card applications made on the same day by the same applicant using three different addresses. The database also contains millions of reports of fraudulent transactions, supplied by financial services, retailers, telecommunications firms and other commercial customers using ID Analytics’ identity-verification technology.
You plug in your name, address, phone number and birth date (Social Security number is optional) and get a score from 1 to 999. A score of 300, for instance, means you’re 16 times more likely than the average consumer to be a victim of identity theft. More than 90% of users are low-risk; those with high-risk scores are referred to the nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center for free help.
Reader Comments (2)
Posted by: Solomon T Johnson at 01/03/2010 08:58:25 AM
I hope ID Analytics, (www.myidscore.com) your favorite free service to give consumers early warning about whether they are at risk of ID Theft is valid and not a Scam. I gave my PII but my identity could not be verified. I hope that meant my risk was low or else I am now at risk. However, I trust Kiplinger Magazine but need to be sure I haven't exposed myself to possible ID Theft.
Posted by: Nomen at 01/07/2010 11:01:48 AM
Nobody's ID is safe. Our business and government leaders have made sure of that. All of our personal information is now considered their property and for sale. I have gone back to using cash wherever possible.