As Ms. Lawson said, the more serious type of identity theft financially is new accounts fraud. The only way you can find out if someone is opening up accounts in your name is through the credit reporting agencies.
As I said, I do a pretty good job of protecting my information as an individual. It's limited, what I can do, but I don't give out a whole lot of personal information, only what's required. I take all the advice that's given to consumers with regard to protecting my information.
One piece of advice that is often given to consumers is that you should be checking your credit report on a regular basis. I did that once about five years ago. It was such a chore to go through and collect all this information. I had to mail it off, which is very insecure. If anyone intercepts that envelope, they have everything they need to steal my identity. I sent it off to both credit reporting agencies. I got a credit report back from one. I never even received it back from the second one, which was sort of a source of concern. I ended up phoning them, and they said, “Oh, yes, we received it. Something must have happened.”
To really protect myself, I would like to go online once a quarter to get an instantaneous look at my credit report. That's something I would do to protect myself. At the moment, that costs me $24 each time I do it.