LifeLock

Everybody knows about identity thieves that open knew credit card accounts in their victim’s names, or use their information to buy cars or even houses. But the one type of identity theft that doesn’t seem as widely known is criminal identity theft.

Since I started writing about identity theft, I’ve learned of one criminal identity theft victim who lost his job and spent years trying to clear his record of pedophilia charges.

I know of another man who’s been arrested several times, lost his job, his unemployment benefits and his driver’s license because of a cocaine dealer who has repeatedly used this man’s identity and then posted bond to get out of jail. Every time the victim gets cleared on one charge, he ends up arrested again for jumping bail and failing to make court appearances.

There’s another man in Florida whose record shows charges of drug possession, strongarm robbery and two counts of aggravated assault with intent to cause serious bodily injury; he committed none of the crimes.

Criminals have a hundred ways of stealing identities, but mail and wallet theft are the most commonly used. LifeLock has ways of stopping them.

LifeLock will have your name removed from the lists for pre-approved credit cards, so identity thieves can’t use them to open new accounts in your name.

TrueAddress monitors the millions of address change submissions submitted to the U.S. Postal Service every year because ID thieves commonly divert their victims’ mail so they have easier access to information and delay their crimes’ discovery.

eRecon monitors thousands of chat rooms and forums used as a marketplace to buy, sell and trade stolen information.

WalletLock is LifeLock’s service for canceling and replacing financial and government-issued documents from your lost or stolen wallet before thieves can use it.

Visit LifeLock.com to learn more about the services and the other strategies LifeLock uses to help protect the credit, finances and reputations of their nearly 1.5 million members.