Good evening all:
Week 7 provided to be another good week with our discussion forum postings. Each of you participating really helps the content being covered to make a connection with each member of the class.
As you discussed in the posting for Identify Theft and terrorism, many of you mentioned that becoming a victim of identity theft can affect your life in more ways than just financially. Most people know identity thieves can potentially clean out your bank accounts, open new credit cards and run up thousands of dollars in debt, and take out loans for homes, vehicles, and other items. These things alone can ruin you financially because they take time and money to clean up the mess from identity theft. When an identity thief ruins your credit score, you will not be able to obtain credit until you are able to get things straightened out.
In addition to ruining your finances, the damage to your credit score may cause your auto and homeowners insurance to increase. Most people do not realize that insurance agencies look at your credit score in addition to your driving and claims records, which factor into how much they charge you for insurance. You may not be able to get a job because some employers look at credit scores of potential employees. Another way an identity thief can cost you money is by stealing your insurance information and running up medical bills. Or by filing false tax returns in order to claim a refund. If someone has filed a false tax return using your SSN, and you are legitimately owed a refund, it can take months to get it straightened out with the IRS.
One of the things that we should be concerned with is how we teach ourselves, customers, fellow employees, etc. about protecting our personally identifiable information (SSN, DOB, etc.) in order to prevent the types of identity theft mentioned. Even though we don’t often think of terrorism, it would be quite disturbing to think that someone had stolen our identities to commit acts of or in support terrorism. It would be quite difficult to get yourself cleared in this type of situation.
Many good questions this week in the "Ask a Question" forum. Questions related to organized crime in our area, what types of training are provided in your workplaces and several others.
Thanks for everyone participation this past week.
Professor McMillian