Your ID and credit are worth ten bucks

Your ID is apparently worth about ten bucks. Today's New York Times has a feature on identity theft, its history, who are the criminals and what is being done to address the problem:

The New York Times > Business > Your Money > Identities Stolen in Seconds:

"....A spokesman for the Consumer Data Industry Association, the trade group representing credit reporting agencies, said consumers could put fraud alerts on their credit histories if they wanted to keep prying eyes at bay. Representatives of Visa and MasterCard, the two largest credit card associations in the country, say that they are guarding customer account numbers more carefully, for example, by deleting the numbers in mail and other documents delivered to customers' homes.

Sergio Pinon, the head of security and risk services at MasterCard, said that MasterCard was deploying computer systems that analyze the spending patterns of individual card users and pluck out anomalies in case a fraud is under way. Like Ms. Feddis, Mr. Pinon said that he was the victim of an identity thief, but that he stopped the fraud because his bank had quickly spotted an intrusion into his credit card account.

Both MasterCard and Visa also monitor Web sites that broker stolen credit card numbers and other personal information. 'One of the things we've discovered is that your identity is worth about $10' on the Internet, said Linda Locke, a MasterCard spokeswoman.

With identities so cheap, experts say that criminals who want to mask themselves inside the envelope of someone else's financial world will continue to have ample opportunities to express themselves.

'The only limitation to identity theft is the creativity of the thief, and that's scary because there's really no limit on creativity, is there?' Ms. Foley said. 'The tour guides on this crazy ride are the thieves, not us and not law enforcement, and as long as that continues it's going to be a problem.' ..."