No, you pretty much don't know what you're talking about. When people's identities get stolen, they typically don't know for years, as was the case with me. S

No, you pretty much don't know what you're talking about. When people's identities get stolen, they typically don't know for years, as was the case with me. So someone opens up a line of credit under your name, spends it all, and it goes into collection for years, and then when it comes time for you to apply for a house because you are expecting a child, you can't because all of a sudden you have terrible credit. Or, you get denied jobs because you don't know about it, and when your employer checks your credit score, they reject you based on the fact you have several tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid debt.