From a different perspective (Score 1)

As mentioned in the my other post, further down the post tree, IANAL, however, I am a financial crimes investigator at the local Sheriff's Office. I feel like there is a huge misconception about identity theft. Using someone else's credit card at a gas station without that person's permission, is not ID theft, it's fraudulent use of a credit card. Actual ID theft is almost exclusively done through the use of the victim's social security number. SSN's, contrary to their original "intent," are serial numbers for US citizens. If you do not believe this, try to go to college, get a loan, get a credit card, etc. To my knowledge, you can't steal someone's ID without having or getting their SSN. You still need a few more nuggets of information, easily found on various websites around the net, but you can actually make do without that information. You CANNOT, however, make do without an SSN. As far as I can tell, in the US, it is impossible to get credit from any company without an SSN. I think account numbers are dangerous because it's possible to derive an SSN from that. Addresses and such are also dangerous, because it makes up part of the information that is required to commit ID theft. Furthermore, account numbers can be used in all kinds of fraudulent activity. All you need is the routing number off of a check, and a check number to rack up some massive bills on someones account. As it has been pointed out in another post, most criminals do not physically have possession of the credit card, just the number. I think it is incumbent upon any company with identifying information, to take due dilligence in protecting that information, be it address, phone numbers, etc. To address the idea that financial institutions have verification processes in place, I say, we need more. I cannot place the blame on the institutions et al. because most of that information is leaked through social engineering. Believe it or not, that still exists. From my experience, once a criminal has a victim's SSN, they go on a rampage, opening as many accounts as possible via telephone, or in a store. Most of the time, when a victim comes to me with an ID theft case, they believe there is only one account opened fraudulently. I direct the victim to check their credit report, and they find 5 or 6 fraudulent accounts, to their surprise. My advice? Protect that SSN at all costs, and check your credit report at LEAST once a year, twice a year if you can. It only costs about $10 US, so why not? Believe me when I say, $10 is worth it to detect ID theft, because once it happens, it is a BEAR to try to get it taken care of.