Don't be a victim

When I said necessity is the mother of invention in an earlier blog, I was so not suggesting stealing someone's identity. And yet there are clearly some low-life idiots out there who think it's a good way to supplement their income, as evidenced by approximately 10 million people who fall victim to identity theft every year. The scary thing is many of these thieves are people we know.

A few years ago, the mailman erroneously put a credit card application for my mother in the wrong mailbox. We found out because she started receiving bills for a card she never had. The bold-faced culprit was a woman we knew very well. She was a neighbor with the same last name. For crying out loud I went to school with her son for most of my life. The police are not able to do anything about these scenarios. And although the credit card company had pictures of her using the card at an ATM, they felt that the amount was not significant enough for them to pursue her, which just eats me up.

I heard on the Michael Baisden show today that hackers are even stealing information from the computer systems of the nation's mega-churches. These organizations are now able to take credit and debit cards when members pay their tithes. Could you be the next victim? Take the test below and find out how much you know.