eBay Embarrassed as Identity Theft Continues Unhampered

When the going gets tough, the tough get creative. All over the world, identity theft puts personal information of individual consumers at risk. From rings of identity theft organizations who park outside shopping centers with wireless networks to read personal information scanned at check-out lanes, to crooked service clerks at gas stations who conduct identity theft by swiping customer cards through their own machines to record personal information.

The suspects are becoming less obvious and their tactics are becoming more creative and also more common. One creative endeavor that resulted in some identity theft involved a man who climbed atop a gas station to disrupt the satellite signal that is needed to send personal information across long distances as quickly as possible. Once the signal is disrupted, the station clerk is forced to use manual methods of recording personal information from credit and debit cards. The recorded information is then utilized by the identity theft culprit. In this case, the thief was spotted atop the roof and the station clerk later heard about the new identity theft tactic and called the authorities. In this instance, some personal information was at risk to identity theft, but it could have been much, much worse.

Instances of corporate negligence are also on the rise as laptops and external computer hard drives full of customer's personal information are lost or misplaced for days at a time, resulting in expensive and embarrassing identity theft investigations.

One recent instance of potential identity theft comes from the UK where a BBC News report, found on their website here , relates the story of a computer that was used to store the personal information of customers from three banks and was sold on eBay.com.

Fortunately, there are still instances of criminal incompetence in the acts of identity theft. One recent case of botched identity theft in America involved a man who inserted a card reader into an ATM machine. The plan might have resulted in hundreds of individual's personal information being stolen if not for the security camera that recorded the whole identity theft operation.

It is not currently known just how many individual's personal information is compromised through identity theft, but chances are that if you carry a card or make online transactions, then you are at risk. It has become more and more difficult to keep track of who is handling your card at public establishments and the growing trend of requiring proof of identity has made it more difficult to keep your personal information to yourself. The best strategy is to keep a close watch on your bank transactions, and if anything unusual occurs, contact the bank immediately. Much more detail about identity theft and fraud can be found online here at Usdoj.gov.