Ladies, guard your documents!

Many South African women’s lives are in turmoil because of lost or stolen documents. These documents include Identity Documents, Passports, Birth Certificates and children’s Clinic Cards. We always hear of women being married to foreigners without their knowledge; women having debts which they did not have liability to; women being declared dead and some of their money and assets were given to someone; women being arrested for crimes they did not commit because people used their passports to enter other countries and conduct crimes using these stolen passports; child grants being applied using stolen birth certificates.

This is called Identity theft. Identity theft is a form of fraud in which someone pretends to be someone else in order to steal money or obtain other benefits. The following are types of Identity theft that one may come across if or when her documents are stolen. It can also happen to men.

1.      Identity cloning and concealment

In this situation, a criminal acquires personal identifiers, and then impersonates someone for the purpose of concealment from authorities. This may be done by a person who wants to avoid arrest for crimes, by a person who is working illegally in a foreign country, or by a person who is hiding from creditors or other individuals. Unlike credit-dependent financial crimes, concealment can continue for an indeterminate amount of time without ever being detected. Additionally, the criminal might attempt to obtain fraudulent documents or IDs consistent with the cloned identity to make the impersonation even more convincing and concealed.

2.      Criminal identity theft

When a criminal identifies himself to police as another individual it is sometimes referred to as "Criminal Identity Theft." In some cases the criminal will obtain a state issued ID using stolen documents or personal information belonging to another person, or they might simply use a fake ID. When the criminal is arrested for a crime, they present the ID to authorities, who place charges under the identity theft victim's name and release the criminal. When the criminal fails to appear for his court hearing, a warrant would be issued under the assumed name. The victim might learn of the incident if the state suspends their own drivers license, or through a background check performed for employment or other purposes, or in rare cases could be arrested when stopped for a minor traffic violation.

It can be difficult for a criminal identity theft victim to clear their record. The steps required to clear the victim's incorrect criminal record depend on what jurisdiction the crime occurred in and whether the true identity of the criminal can be determined. The victim might need to locate the original arresting officers, or be fingerprinted to prove their own identity, and may need to go to a court hearing to be cleared of the charges. Obtaining an expungement of court records may also be required. Authorities might permanently maintain the victim's name as an alias for the criminal's true identity in their criminal records databases. One problem that victims of criminal identity theft may encounter is that various data aggregators might still have the incorrect criminal records in their databases even after court and police records are corrected. Thus it is possible that a future background check will return the incorrect criminal records.

3.       Synthetic identity theft

A variation of identity theft which has recently become more common is synthetic identity theft, in which identities are completely or partially fabricated. The most common technique is combining a real social security number with a name and birthdate other than the ones associated with the number. Synthetic identity theft is more difficult to track, as it doesn't show on either person's credit report directly, but may appear as an entirely new file in the credit bureau or as a subfile on one of the victim's credit reports. Synthetic identity theft primarily harms the creditors that unwittingly grant the fraudsters credit. Consumers can be affected if their names become confused with the synthetic identities, or if negative information in their subfiles impacts their credit.

4.       Medical identity theft

Medical identity theft occurs when someone uses a person's name and sometimes other parts of their identity—such as insurance information—without the person's knowledge or consent to obtain medical services or goods, or uses the person’s identity information to make false claims for medical services or goods. Medical identity theft frequently results in erroneous entries being put into existing medical records, and can involve the creation of fictitious medical records in the victim’s name.

Thank you for reading my article. I trust that this information will help you lots.

Date Posted: 11:01:00 AM | 21 Apr 2010


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