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One Way Stolen Identities Are Used for Fraud

With hundreds of millions of charges being done daily through ATM and credit cards, one would hazard to guess that the technology securing them would be incredibly sophisticated. You would be wrong. Just focus on the black stripe.

The magic world we are looking for here is magstripe. Practically speaking, it is the black stripe on the back of the card. The stripe is actually a magnetic record of certain information that is read when you pursue a transaction.

Given the serious cash being moved through plastic, the technology inbedded in the back of your cards must be very advanced right? Nope. Invented in the 1970s, it is as antiquated as a computer from 1980 compared to a laptop today.

So, how do identity thieves go about manipulating the magstripes to use stolen personal information? With the advances in technology over the years, it is incredibly easy. Much like using a CD Rewriter, they simply use a magstripe re-writer.

The magstripe device is so easy it is silly. It comes with software that lets you load the rewriter with the identity of someone. Swipe the card twice and that is it. You now have a new identity to use when shopping till you drop.

If the process seems familiar, it is. You have used it at least once and probably a couple of times in your life. When you opened a bank account, you were given an ATM card. To activate it, you used a version of the re-writer.

Ironically, cash is king for identity thieves. Why? Well, they don't want to be tracked, so they don't buy credit card blanks. Instead, they buy cash cards from banks with cash payment and then load your identity on those.

At this point, the world is their oyster. They can pretty much shop and charge till they drop unless some observant clerk puts a kibosh on them. As you have probably noticed, most clerks are not particularly attuned to such things.

As you can guess, the technology for credit cards is seriously outdated. That being said, nobody is sure how to make it more sophisticated. As time passes, we will probably see cards simply dissapear.

Article Source: http://www.articlebankonline.com

Aazdak Alisimo writes about identity theft for ArticlesonIdentityTheft.com.

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