There are many serious issues relating to identity theft in the world today and one of those issues centers around the fact that many people involved in identity theft scams are so completely swindled by the scam artists that are at work that they end up being completely unaware that an identity theft crime has taken place. Before we can discuss situations like these and how they occur, it is important to identify exactly what identity theft is.

Identity theft is simply any act that involves someone else lifting, learning or utilizing your personal information. It is against the law and because of its illegal aspects people that are convicted of identity theft end up facing prison time and fines depending on the severity of the crime. Nobody but you has the right to know and use your personal information. Many people have fallen prey to identity theft attacks by intelligent and crafty scam artists and one of those scam artists involves utilizing an e-mail address.

Through the scam e-mail address, the crook sends out a scam e-mail to a number of different people and in responding to this scam e-mail, you are usually asked to submit some information about yourself. Once you have replied in good faith and submitted that e-mail, the thief then takes that e-mail and goes ahead to use your personal information for their own ends. The e-mails that are sent out can take the form of any number of different aspects but here are the most common ones in use today.

Relative: Some scam artists will use a very general e-mail from a free service like Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo! and profess to be a relative of yours. Considering that all of us have a large number of cousins that we don't regularly see, it is quite understandable that many people would be taken in by this specific ploy. They ask to meet you and in asking you to do so might ask for your address to determine where you live. Or they might ask for your address and birthday so that they can "confirm that you are their relative" or they might do any number of other things in order to get your personal information. Remember that with your name, your birthday and your address, a crook can do a lot of harm to you, so this is personal information that you don't want to release.

Organization: Some scam artists actually have access to e-mail addresses that are of different organizations and they might send out e-mails soliciting funds. E-mails like ones that might look like they come from your church or from a hospital you go to or any other organization that might be important in your life. When a person is being general, they can easily get someone to think something they never actually state in the e-mail. Many people (especially senior citizens) are drawn in by this and end up giving out their credit card number.

There are many other situations where people would use an e-mail to try and get your personal information, but these two are by far the most common.

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