Identity Theft Predictions for 2009

The Identity Theft Resource Center issued some thoughts and predictions for this year, and the general consensus is that it doesn’t look good. It’s a given that the poor economic situation is going to persist, and this is going to naturally give rise to more desperate attempts by spammers to get our attention, our money, and even our identities. Identity theft seems to be one of the biggest risks of falling victim to a spam email, as spammers use more creative techniques to direct us to bogus web sites, where they attempt to trick us into entering our personal information, account numbers and social security numbers.

According to the ITRC’s predictions, we can look for plenty of real estate-based scams that take advantage of the housing crisis, and the many people that are facing foreclosure. Many of those real estate emails that purport to offer assistance are really nothing more than scams, which offer to refinance a loan but in reality generate payments that are even larger than the ones you had before. The report also predicts more credit card-related scams, and spam targeting people looking for a second income. These phishing scams involve offers to work as a receiving agent for an overseas company. They require you to provide personal banking information, and they end up cleaning out your account.

We can also look forward to more targeted accounts, designed to appear personalized so as to avoid the appearance of a mass-generated fraud.