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Shouldn't identity/credit theft be easy to catch?
Identity theft seems to be a common crime and there is a lot of information on how to protect yourself and clear problems on your credit report.
But why does it seem so hard to catch the perpetrators? For instance, if someone steals your credit information and opens credit cards in your name, couldn't they be traced by the address they are using?
3 Answers
- Steve DLv 76 years ago
Identity thieves use the address of the person whose identity they stole - that way the info matches up. Before dong so, many will have new IDs with their picture made up so all they have to do is go into a store and buy things and if people ask for ID, they have valid ID they can show. Even worse, the thieves can have up to 30 days to buy things on existing credit cards before the victim finds out (billing cycle) and by that time, the thief has made a new account somewhere and until that bill starts coming in, they have lots of spending they can do.
- StephenWeinsteinLv 76 years ago
No. They usually don't use their own addresses, and even in the very, very rare cases when they do use their own addresses, there is no way to tell that the address they used was theirs. So, no, they can't be traced by the addresses they are using, because those aren't their addresses.
