Tallahassee, Fla. (WTXL)--According to Javelin Strategy, Every two seconds someone becomes a victim of identity theft.
But even less than that--a victim of simple account fraud where someone hacks in and steals your money.
While account fraud victims only typically risk their accounts, those who have fallen prey to identity theft risk their entire lives.
"During that time when my identity was stolen, we weren't at the financial place where we are now. We were young and married and just had a baby. That was a difficult time, Dee Jackson."
Jackson thought it just a simple account fraud until she realized someone had her social security number and negative accounts in her name.
"So when I called the credit card I knew that there had been some type of mistake. They looked it over and they said are you social security number, boom, boom boom? I said yes. They said do you live at this address? I said no . And they said well do you live in this city. And I said yes. So there was some personal information they had. I was surprised to know that whoever this person was had my social security number," Jackson explains.
Authorities were never able to catch the crook or even find out how someone got a hold of Jackson's social security number, but Officer David Northway with the Tallahassee Police Department says this isn't uncommon considering the complexity of the issue.
"Even though you get a police report it takes months sometimes years to get all of those invalid charges off of your credit report. So we're going to work as hard as we can to get rid of it and to solve the cases. But the backlash is the credit and money issues that come up for you personally, says Northway".
That's why it's so important that you shred your important documents. That includes everything from financial statements, junk mail, credit card advertisements, tax returns, bank statements and pay stubs.
But beyond the paper, thieves and hackers are becoming increasingly clever using everything from fake e-mails and now even Facebook to steal information.
Take this for instance. Facebook has a lot of your personal information including your name and birth date. Well that's enough for any crook to take that information to look you up via the voter registration site and find your address. Put all of that together, and a thief can create and account in your name or even worse; steal your identity all together.
