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Are You at Risk of Identity Theft?

Written by Nickel - 11 Comments

Are you at risk for identity theft? As it turns out, a company called ID Analytics has created a website called MyIDScore.com where they perform a statistical analysis of your “basic identity elements” to assign you an ID Score. This score supposedly reflects your risk of falling victim to identity theft.

I actually first heard about this site last May when they first launched, but promptly forgot about it. More recently, a reader left a comment about it when I wrote about identity theft rates being on the rise. Intrigued, I decided to check it out.

For starters, I did a bit of background investigation to confirm that it’s not a scam. It’s not — in fact, a variety of consumer advocates, including Clark Howard, have sung the praises of MyIDScore. With that info in hand, I hopped on over to the site to check out my ID score.

After clicking the “Check My Score” link near the top, you’ll be asked for your name, address, phone number, and (optionally) your social security number. You’ll then be asked some questions drawn from your credit report to confirm your identity. From there, you’ll get your score.

The possible scores range from 1-999, with higher scores indicating a higher risk of identity theft. As you can see from the image below, mine is 284, which is considered to be low.

There is a low likelihood that information pertaining to you has or will soon be used to commit fraud and your good name is probably not in danger. Although you currently show no signs of being a victim of identity fraud, no system can detect 100% of possible fraudulent activity. It is important to remain vigilant about protecting and safeguarding your personal information.

They then go on to some precautionary measures that you might want to take, including checking your credit report at annualcreditreport.com (the only truly free credit report) and reviewing info from the following public service websites:

At the very end, they also make a pitch for a handful of commercial services that make use of ID Analytics products, but it’s not over the top, and it’s easy enough to just ignore this info if you’re not interested.

What’s your score?

Published on April 14th, 2010 - 11 Comments
Filed under: Identity Theft

About the author: Nickel is the founder and editor-in-chief of this site. He's a thirty-something family man who has been writing about personal finance since 2005, and guess what? He's on Twitter!

11 Responses to “Are You at Risk of Identity Theft?”

1
MikeS Says:
April 14th, 2010 at 8:50 am
I’m at a 290. I check my reports through annualcreditreport.com every year. I also try and space the three bureaus out throughout the year, so that I can spot any problems early.
2
John Says:
April 14th, 2010 at 8:55 am
Mine came up to 299. I do lots of online banking and manage all of my credit accounts via websites, which appears to have little real ID theft risk.
3
Janice Says:
April 14th, 2010 at 11:25 am
I came in at 264. I highly recommend subscribing to Experian’s TripleAlert for $4.95 a month, which lets you know immediately if there are any changes to any of your 3 credit reports. I’ve used it for years.
4
stephen Says:
April 14th, 2010 at 11:43 am
My score is 234 but they couldn’t identify me without my ssn so I gave it to them. Now I’m already regretting it haha.
5
cemccon Says:
April 14th, 2010 at 11:56 am
My score is 58. One thing to consider … NEVER include your SSN on all of those forms at the doctor’s office, lab, hospital, etc. Medical ID theft is on the rise.
6
Brandon Says:
April 14th, 2010 at 9:15 pm
My score is 288. Like John, I do a lot of online banking. The price of convenience.
7
Joe Says:
April 15th, 2010 at 1:59 am
Hmm… I’m pretty high. I’m at 554. No idea why my risk is higher other than most. It could be the fact that I’m young and my credit history doesn’t go too far back. I only started building credit about 1.5 years ago. Kind of discouraging to say the least =P.
8
Eric Says:
April 15th, 2010 at 4:58 am
@ Joe

I’m young too with a short history but mine is 299. You should make sure your info is safe.
9
joyce Says:
April 15th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
I was reasonably happy with the 289 I got. Then I entered my husbands name just to see and he had 113. Wonder why his is so much lower than mine?
10
Tony Says:
April 17th, 2010 at 10:45 am
QUOTE: “My score is 58. One thing to consider â€¦ NEVER include your SSN on all of those forms at the doctorâ€™s office, lab, hospital, etc. Medical ID theft is on the rise.”

TOTALLY AGREE! Hurt my ankle last November and had to go to different doctors. Every time I put XXX-XX-XXX in lieu of real SSN and no one ever questioned it or reasked me for my SSN.
11
Financial Uproar Says:
April 20th, 2010 at 7:04 pm
I think that your chances of identity theft just went up with giving that site all of your personal info

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