What is Criminal Identity Theft

May 2nd, 2009 by Certified Identity Theft Advisor

Criminal identity theft basically is when your good name winds up smack dab in the middle of criminal activity. Criminal identity theft can be the most devasting form of ID theft, as it literally can change your ability to sustain your current lifestyle in the blink of an eye.

Picture this - you are a male elementary school principal. You, your wife, and kids are driving to a family outing. You are pulled over for a routine traffic check, and suddenly, in front of your family, you are handcuffed and arrested on child pornography charges.

How can this possibly be happening?! It could happen in any number of ways. Perhaps your good name was on the phony credit card used to purchase access to child porn sites on the internet.

Or perhaps your good name was on the phony drivers license of child porn film makers that were busted. When the criminal using your good name does not appear for arraignment, an arrest warrant is put out on your good name.

How does this really affect you? Your good reputation is now flawed. Your position as school principal is gone. Or any job working with children is gone. In an instant, you are no longer the “you” you were a week ago.

Innocent until proven guilty is a very difficult process in identity theft cases, because professional identity thieves stay hidden, and many times the criminal activity is out of state, or over the internet. In other words, it is hard to get to core facts with criminal identity theft.

I have personally interviewed people who have been victims of criminal identity theft and they have spent anywhere from 6 to 10 years trying to get their good name put back together.

Especially in criminal identity theft, if victims use trained investigative agents for identity restoration, they get their lives back in a matter of months, not years.