I'm Ben Arp and this is, "Three Things You
Need to Know About Identity Theft."
So first we're going to start by talking about
what is an identity, then we'll talk about
why people steal identities, and then third
we'll talk about how big of a problem this
is.
So what is an identity?
If you think about the different ways that
people may define you they may say, well,
his name is Ben.
But just know that my name is Ben is not enough
for you to steal my identity or to impersonate
me.
You may know that my address is a specific
street number or a specific location but I
live in an apartment building with hundreds
of other people so that alone isn't enough
for you to identify me.
You might know that I have a Gmail email address
but again, that alone is not enough for you
to steal my identity.
When you start to combine these different
factors, if you know my email address, if
you know my physical address, you know my
full name, maybe you know something like my
social security number or my date of birth.
Suddenly you have enough information to go
to an institution and convince them that you
are me.
That is what identity theft is all about.
It's about combining enough pieces of information
so that you can pretend to be someone that
you're not.
So why would somebody want to steal someone
else's identity?
Well, it's typically not because they think
you're really cool.
And its also not because they hate you.
The reason that someone would steal your identity
is so that they can get money for themselves.
Often people that steal your identity don't
know who you are.
They have no feelings about you at all.
They're simply trying to get money for themselves.
The way that they do that, there's a variety
of different ways that they can do that.
One way is that they can open new credit card
accounts in your name that you don't know
about.
These will show up on your credit report so
getting your credit reports is a way to find
out that it happened.
But they could spend up a lot of money without
you ever knowing.
Two, they could get access to your credit
card account or your bank account and make
purchases that are unauthorized on your account.
Third, they could use your identity to try
to extort money from your friends and family.
They could send an email to your grandma and
say to your grandma, "Hi Grandma, it's Ben,
I'm stuck in Tijuana, Mexico and they're holding
me captive and I need $1,000 from you sent
to this PayPal address.
Thanks.
And if my Grandma believes that I sent that
email she may send that $1,000 to that PayPal
account and I may never know until I talk
to my Grandma at Christmas.
So these are the types of reasons that people
steal an identity.
So that they can get money for themselves.
How big of a problem is this?
In the United States every year between 10
and 20 million people, its estimated, have
identity theft happen to them.
On average it costs $1,348 per instance of
identity theft which means we're talking about
millions or even billions of dollars that
are lost because of identity theft and this
becomes more and more prevalent when we have
our identities online.
The more accounts that you have online, the
more digital we go as a society, identity
theft becomes easier and easier.
It used to be that to impersonate someone
you would have to show up at their house and
steal something out of their mailbox.
But now it's as simple as getting data from
them online and using it against them.
So its a big problem and it is continuing
to grow.
So those are the three things you need to
know about identity theft.
What is an identity?
Why do people steal an identity?
And how big of a problem is it?
If you'd like to learn more about identity
theft I'm going to do some more videos about
this so go ahead and like this video and subscribe
to my YouTube channel and you'll get notifications
every time I come out with a new video.
Thanks!
