Identity Theft: The Michelle Brown Story

Identity theft is one of the fasting growing crimes in the nation. In 2014, over seven million people had their identity stolen. The "Michelle Brown Story" portrayed the emotional and financial toll that this crime takes on an individual. Prior to watching the movie, I had not realized the far reaching effects of identity theft. The true life character, Michelle Brown, had the American dream to own a house. To make this dream a reality, she had saved money, built a good credit score, always paid her bills on time, and had a good job. She did nothing wrong to become a victim. The only thing she did was turn in an application, something that everyone does at some point in time. During the movie I felt many emotions such as sympathy,

The attitudes of the creditors were uncaring, their bottom line was to get their money. It was frustrating as they would not listen, nor work with Michelle to try to solve the problems. The companies should have tried to protect themselves more, which would have in turn helped Michelle. Hopefully, attitudes toward identity theft have changed from the way they were portrayed by the judge in the movie. I was confused by his lack of understanding concerning the depth to which this crime invaded every detail of her life. Even as the movie was ending, I felt frustration at the lack of compassion concerning the

One of the things that make people easy targets is online identities, because those are numbers. His plan for protection consists of use credit cards over allowing access into other accounts, ie. bank account information, never give out a social security number, never give out information about yourself over the phone, avoid writing a bank account number on anything, rip up pre-approved credit card notices, and read bank statements. Some of these may seem simple and yet, most people make these mistakes more than they realize. Social security numbers are used by most agencies for back ground checks, getting a drivers license, applying for loans, etc. The question would be what happens to those papers when they are out of sight. In the movie, Michelle Brown had given these numbers to a trusted