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Identity theft:
It happened to me and it can happen to you.
Measures you can take to protect yourself
from having your identity stolen.
I am a web designer for the US Army Reserves
and had my identity stolen in 2002. As a result, I decided to use my
talents and resources to attempt to warn as many people as I can to keep
this from happening to them.
In most cases, as in mine, the victim
never knows how or when their identity was stolen, or who the thief was.
However, I have a good idea what happened in my case. In the summer of 2002
I spent most of the month of July on Active Duty at Ft. Benning, Georgia. Within the Military, we use social security
numbers for everything. We must write it on forms whenever we arrive or
leave at a new duty station, when we check out equipment, sign for our pay,
and even before each meal at the chow hall. This is a problem the Army has
recognized, but has yet to enact any changes for the situation.
The nearest civilization to Ft. Benning is the city of Columbus, Georgia. During my stay at Ft. Benning that summer, I made only a few trips into Columbus. I went to the Wal-Mart and out to eat a time or
two, but everything I did there was paid for with cash. However, almost six
months later, as I started to use my credit card to purchase Christmas
gifts, I found that someone in Columbus, Georgia had racked up almost two thousand dollars under
my name. Upon further research, much to my dismay, I found I had become a
fatality of identity theft.
We never found out who the crook was,
but he or she had taken my name and social security number and applied for
a credit card, sending it to a post office box in Georgia, then went on a shopping spree. I'm convinced my
information was acquired due to my military service that previous summer. I
hate to think it was a fellow soldier but I'm not naive either. The Army
employs many civilians so it may have been one of them as well. Regardless
who it was…it was not a pleasant experience for me, thus the
conception of this website. I hope to help educate visitors on what
identity theft really is, and how not to become another one of its fatalities.
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