This information is intended for Affiliate and Corporate partners as well as others interested in the identity theft protection arena, to assist in understanding the problem of identity theft and the protection landscape.  Please contact us with any questions at info@idcops.com.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reports that for the 4th year in a row identity theft topped the list of consumer complaints. Identity theft accounted for over 42 percent of all complaints lodged in the FTC Consumer Sentinel database in 2004, up 40 percent from 2002.  An identity theft occurred every 79 seconds in 2004 and it is the fastest growing and most reported crime in the country. 

Identity theft affects at least 1 in 20 people each year (with more current estimates at 1 in 5), with  direct losses typically between $2 and $5 thousand per incident.  Even more painful and difficult, it takes an average of 2 years, along with attorney’s fees and lost productivity, to recover from the damage done to credit reports, bank accounts, and personal records.  Often the harm is never fully undone.  Once an individual suffers an identity theft, they may continue to be victimized.  While consumers suffer billions of dollars in losses and years of painful recovery, financial institutions absorb an average loss of $18,000 per individual client identity theft, with the cost to businesses totaling nearly $60 billion per year.

The crime is growing at an alarming, indeed terrifying rate.  Public awareness of identity theft has increased significantly over the last 2-3 years.  Millions have been notified of database invasions at their alma maters, credit card companies, or state or town records databases.  Nobody is immune to the theft of their personal information as long as it is stored and available on databases that are too often hacked into by thieves or stolen by employees.  New approaches and group identity theft (in which thieves take large sets of personal information from workplaces) are all on the increase. 

ID Cops^® has the only truly proactive system available today.  Privacy ProBot^® works ahead of the perpetrators – unlike credit freeze, credit fraud alert, or insurance based services, which are “reactive” in nature.  These products offer little protection and exploit misinformation and inaccurate public education regarding how identity theft is actually perpetrated.  For example, the public, and even new-to-the-industry service providers, are unaware that underground internet identity theft rings hack and raid billions of pieces of personal information every year from data repositories, and that such criminal activity may not show on up a credit report for six months to a year (or longer) – long after financial damage is done.  Therefore, credit report monitoring does not stop identity theft.  ID Cops^® is the only company that uses a fully automated, self-learning system to search for subscriber data traded directly by the criminal element anywhere in the world, around the clock.  Unlike other services, the ID Cops^® system also employs methods that do not expose subscriber information on the web. 

Most other products and services in this arena are ineffective.  But, these have been the only options for consumers who are fearful that their financial and personal lives face ruination by faceless, organized groups of identity thieves.  Some other providers offer minimal after-the-fact remediation.  While this may offer some level of comfort to an ID theft victim, these services do nothing to prevent or even inform about personal information violations that lead to identity theft.  They are absolutely not pro-active or preventative.  A serious identity theft must occur for these providers to even know about a problem, much less execute their service.  It is also all too common that providers in this arena use tools that actually make their customers more vulnerable and further personal information violations by exposing personal and private information on the web.  In fact, ID Cops^® has recovered extensive data unintentionally dispersed by a number of service providers.  Identity Cops^®" Privacy ProBot^®, in R&D for seven years, is designed never to expose a subscriber’s personal information.