The crime of identity theft is reaching epic proportions across the country, and in fact is one of the fastest growing crimes of this century. The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) records indicate that identity theft has been topping their list of consumer complaints for a few years already, accounting for more than 40% of all complaints filed with the FTC.

In addition to the crime aspect of identity theft, the amount of money lost as a result of identity theft is estimated to be over $50 billion dollars every year, making it one of the most costly crimes on record to date. This includes identity theft losses from businesses as well as individual consumers.

When most people think of identity theft, they may associate that with using one's credit card for an online purchase over the Internet. But in reality, the Internet is not associated with this crime in a surprisingly high number of reported cases, and that as much as 70% of ID theft cases stem from being an "inside job". What this means is that an employee or former employee of a business or company is the thief, and this could even be at places where you normally shop today.

Further investigations into the characteristics of identity theft crimes show that in more than 25% of reported cases, the victim knew, was related to, or had some type of familiarity with the thief. This shows that this is much more than just a misunderstanding between family members at a picnic, it was a crime committed with malicious intent.

People today are far too free with giving out their personal information to whoever claims to need it, like even the clerk at the grocery store checkout. They do not need nor have any right to know your personal information, and if you give it to them, ask to see their written policy as to how that information will be used.

The key to your personal information is your social security number, and you should never carry your social security card in your purse or wallet in case it gets stolen. There are very few occasions when you need to have that information available if you don't have your number memorized, so do not carry your card with you.

If you spend any amount of time online at all, you have probably seen the spam emails that are allegedly from your bank or credit union, asking you to click a link to verify your personal information. Never ever click the link in those emails. Although the email may look official, complete with your bank's graphic logo, any 12 year old these days can create such an email, and if you give out your personal information at the site you are taken to, you have become a victim. A real bank or financial institution would never ask you to verify that information online. If in doubt, call your bank and ask what kind of information they need you to verify, where you will almost always find that they have NOT had a security breach and do not need you to verify anything.

There are a variety of additional things you should implement to protect yourself from identity theft, and the key to it is to NOT provide your personal information to people who do not have a right to it or do not need it. Safeguard your information and avoid become an identity theft statistic.