What a farce... Laws are on the books to protect you from indentity theft yet almost daily I read about some happless person who has had their identity stolen by an illegal alien. These victims cannot get help from the politically correct LAW ENFORCERS because the perpertrator is an illegal alien.

These "thefts" aren't done by sofisticated crime rings. They are just making up numbers that will pass the test and put them on forged Social Security Cards. However, once the problem surfaces it is nearly impossible, with today's "pitty the poor illegal immigrant" attitude, to resolve the problem for the victim.

If you think these laws protect you, you are sadly mistaken. I recently logged on to annualcreditreport.com and started to review my credit reports. It is free for you to do once a year. Ir qill give you all three credit reporting agencies. However, I stopped at the first one...

I was appalled... At the very bottom of the report was a list of companies who had accessed my report (and all of my personal data) because they belonged to that agency and, ostenibly, wanted to pre-qualify me for credit cards or other offers. Some of these were from people I've never heard of...

We hear of very secure companies getting their files hacked. How about these "no name" companies who have access to your credit information? Who makes the determination about the security of their data before it is released?

There wer 14 hits by these companies. I'd have to assume that an equal number (or more)are on the other agencies. That means that my credit report was probably accessed and taken into their files by 52 companies since there is no reason to subscribe to more than one agency.

The report stated that "these inquiries do not show up as 'hits' on your credit report" because they are from someone who wants to pre-qualify you for "offers".

Fortunately they offered an "Opt Out" from giving out information to these "curious" companies and I immediately enrolled.

Inb short, your credit information could be in hundreds of databases just waiting to be hacked by sofisticated internet hackers. When you are "hit", it is too late because the law enforcers are too busy with "real" crimes.

Go to http://www.annualcreditreport. com and opt out or your life and credit is in peril...

It mmay also turn up if someone else has tried to use your Social Security number.

Finally, check your Social Security annual earnings statement against your W-2/1099 statments to verify that there aren't more monies paid in than you earned. This could trigger an audit from our beloved IRS...

Learn more about this author, Poppa Dave.
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