Credit/Identity theft

This is an ongoing topic only now in the back of my mind because of the economy and the election. Identity theft (seems more like a nick name) stealing another’s credit to buy products. So when I hear or read this term “identify theft” I think of movies like “the couch trip” a doctor loses his daily planer, someone finds it and starts to meet his appointments. This doctor had no way to prove to anyone who he was. All that information was in his planer. I think this tragic situation would be the only true identify theft. Everything else is fraud. To use another movie reference in “mo money” a crook that worked for a credit card company was using them to buy products and them sell them to whomever. But there is more. I can only do so much to maintain personal security of my information. And it’s easy to do. However the entities I do business with is another story all together. Once upon a time consumers had no idea that their information was being shared freely between companies as sales leads. Now, I can’t remember how many notices I’ve received asking if I want to opt out of affiliate sharing. These notices never list these affiliates (kind of like proving to the police that you saw a UFO fly over your house). So I have no idea who my information was passed to before getting this opportunity to say no (I should have to op-in to share my info). I also haven’t received anything saying we have received your information from company X and this is what we are doing to protect your information. To add another dimension to the things out of my control, incidents where information is compromised is now a common event. Do a search for data breach and read all about how someone’s work laptop was stolen, or a server was hacked. I’ve receive notices from companies saying my information was compromised and there isn’t much I can do. So I do what I can and deal with credit problems as the come.