User:Chrisp24/sandbox

There are a variety of ways to continue to protect yourself from Identity Theft. Such things include monitoring ones financial accounts, reviewing all transactions, staying up to date with alerts provided by bank accounts and credit card companies, and get your free credit report at annualcreditreport.com.

There are many different kinds of identity theft ranging from medical to financial to child identity theft. One of the major identity theft categories is Tax Identity Theft. Tax Identity theft occurs when someone gains another persons information and uses that to receive tax refund. The thief in this case can also try to get a job and then their employer will report the income of the unwitting taxpayer, this then results in the taxpayer getting in trouble with the IRS.

Ways to combat this includes filling out a 14039 Formto the IRS which will put them on alert and someone who believed they have been a victim of tax related theft can obtain a Identity Protection Personal Identification Number (IP PIN), which is a 6 digit code used in replace of a SSN for filing tax returns.

The Federal Trade Commission(FTC) estimates that about nine million people will be victims of identity theft in the United States per year. It was also estimated that in 2008 630,000 people under the age of 19 were victims of theft. This then gave them a debt of about $12,799 which was not theirs.

Not only are children in general big targets of identity theft but children who are in foster care are even bigger targets. This is because they are often being moved around quite frequently and their SSN is being shared with multiple people and agencies. Foster children are even more victims of identity theft within their own family and other relatives. Young people in foster care who are victims of this crime are often left alone to struggle with their newly formed bad credit.

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