Identity Theft Myths

You’ve probably heard a number of things about identity theft, mainly that you can lose money. The media told us quite a bit about financial identity theft, but not the whole story. As Christians we have heard that the love of money is the root of all evil, and God will take care of us if we obey Him, so why do anything? Money isn’t one of our top concerns and if we try to be good people and take some reasonable precautions we should be fine, right?

We have also heard bad things happen to good people. That’s why, in today’s world, it is important for us to know about identity theft and take measures to protect ourselves. This will be the first in a series of articles about identity theft, how it can affect Christians, and what we can do about it. So to start out, let’s dispel some of the myths surrounding identity theft.

MYTH #1: Its only about money, and I watch my credit cards.
Financial identity theft accounts for less than a third of all identity theft. The second most reported identity theft is actually criminal identity theft. This is when someone commits a crime in your name. Malcolm Byrd of Rock County, Wisconsin, is one such victim, and he has been arrested multiple times. A man arrested on drug charges gave the police his name and another mans crimes have haunted him for years. We’ll discuss the five types of identity theft in a subsequent article, but in summary, they are: drivers license identity, social security identity, medical i …