Identity Theft Protection Services Compete to Offer Insurance Services amidst Cacophony of Fraud

In retrospective, a century ago, when felonies had their eyes on stealing money, they preferred robbing banks. While a few bank robbers became infamous, robbing banks was a detrimental occupation. In this 21^st century, identity theft is undeniably the leading cause of financial theft.
In a layman’s vernacular, identity theft is the stealing of another person’s personal identification information—social security number—and using it for sycophancy. Identity theft is not merely a stand-alone crime, but part of another crime such as credit card fraud. There is no need for thieves to use arms to steal money from others. A victim’s personal information is enough to commit a felon. Identity theft can have its repercussions on cell phone service, credit card accounts, bank and brokerage accounts, health refunds and health insurance.

A rogue even takes loan in a victim’s name to buy luxurious items such as a car. There has been several instances of felonies purloining victim’s health insurance data and have medical services performed in victim’s name.
Felonies tend to impersonate and use the victim’s data to commit chicanery in the victim’s name. For instance, men can impersonate as women or vice versa as telecast in a series of humorous commercials regarding identity theft. Identity thieves often take undue advantage of the event or news and use these scenarios to create a sense of urgency to cajole victims to reveal personal data. Therefore, the rise of identity theft protection services market is motivated by such incidents and offenses impacting the global population.

Much to chagrin, several potential sources of identity theft are beyond an individual’s control such as personal data at workplaces, in databases, government agencies, medical service providers. For instance, at the time of notorious 2017 Equifax hack, cyber thieves stole and abstracted personal information of over 145 million people, equating to more than two-thirds of U.S. working population.
Popular social sites such as Facebook, Twitter have also become the platforms of impersonation and scamming aimed at stealing personal data. More often than not, the data is publicly accessible and within reach. Imposters have created identical Facebook profiles to inflict users’ devices with spyware which can lead to robbing of personal data.

Industry-leading step, identity theft protection services have been the need of the hour amidst the cacophony of impersonation and fraud. Identity theft protection services generally monitors individuals’ credit reports for activities, including new accounts opened and inquiries. A few of identity theft services go an extra mile and stay vigil on other types of consumer reports along with a myriad of public and private records. Anomalies detected could allude that the individual has become the prey of identity theft. Identity theft protection services do not ward off identity theft, rather they serve as an early warning system aimed at preventing further inimicality.
There are two types of identity theft protection services—identity monitoring and credit monitoring. Identity monitoring cautions the individual when the personal information—driver’s license, passport, bank account information —is being used in a way that is not being revealed in the credit report.

Credit monitoring, on the other hand, traces activity on the credit reports and warns regarding the activities that is shown in the credit report. However, it might not apprise if an identity theft withdraws amount from the bank account.
Sensing the urgency, majority of identity theft protection services are offering identity theft insurance that covers out-of-the pocket expenditures directly linked with reclaiming the identity.