Intro

A Victim of Identify Theft

On a normal afternoon, you go through your normal routine of driving through the McDonald's drive thru to take advantage of the dollar menu. "I'd like a cheeseburger, an order of fries, and a coke, please," is the order you call from your car and the total is only $3.37.

McDonald's drive thru

You pull around to the window and hand the clerk your bank card as usual. But today, she hands it right back to you and says, "I'm sorry, but your card was declined due to insufficient funds."

person using a card swipe machine

Of course, your reaction is one of shock and you begin to explain that there is no possible way that can be right since only yesterday you had over $1,000.00 in your bank account.

You might be asking right now, how could this happen. The explanation – identity theft. Through some method, a criminal has acquired your personal information and has used it to deplete your bank account. Hopefully this will never happen to you! However, it happens to a large number of people every day.

laptop with a gloved hand coming out of the screen and stealing a credit card from a wallet

In this lesson, you will learn what identity theft involves and how to prevent it.