Always be aware of your credit reports and see to it that you are aware of anything out of the ordinary that may come up on your credit records such as purchases that you haven t made yourself. Try to report any discrepancies immediately to the authorities. You can even have your account temporarily blocked in order to prevent further losses. The convenience itself is the beginning of horror. Identity theft cases happen when another person gets access to use private information not belonging to them. In the United States, the highest cases come from age ranging 30 to 39, obviously those from the group of productive working class. Identity theft cases are estimated to be 700,000 people each year, an alarming number where each will spend an average of $1000.00 for the damage. Ted Burke is a former law enforcement agent who has spent many years dealing with identity theft victims. "They really didn't have an antidote or way to stop the bleeding until we came about. Burke is now the senior regional vice president of Prepaid Legal Services, Inc. in Nevada. His company has offices all over North America and has now partnered with the nation's biggest investigative agency, Kroll Inc. This in turn has made it easier for people to give out their personal information that can be at risk of being stolen. Even having these credit applications available online has proven to be a big reason for the increase of identity theft. Hackers may be able to get their hands on such information that they can use for a number of crimes using an unwilling victim s identity. And because identity thieves are real slick, authorities would not know what is happening unless you tell them so. They would not even know that there are two you without you saying that there is. Only by making an effort to seek the proper authorities and report your case will you be able to help fight this growing criminal bandwagon. If you have received mailed in applications for "preapproved" credit cards, but have thrown them in the garbage can without tearing up the enclosed materials, criminals may retrieve them from the trash and activate them without your knowledge. (Some credit card companies, when sending credit cards, have adopted security measures that allow a card recipient to activate the card only from his or her home telephone number but this is not yet a universal practice.