March 27, 1997, dawned as a normal day at the Collins' home. By the middle of the morning, Jack Collins was at his desk, writing checks, paying bills the way he always had on time. Then the phone rang, and the nightmare began. (1){{U}}An investigator for a bank was on the line, asking in a severe voice why Collins, a university physicist, was late on payments for a $27,000 car, bought in Virginia the previous year.{{/U}} "I don't have a car like this," Collins protested. The last time he had set foot in Virginia was as an officer at a submarine base, three decades ago. But his name was on the contract, and so was his Social Security Number. During the months that ensued, he and his wife learned that someone had bought four more cars and 28 other items—worth $113,000 in all in their name. Their hitherto good credit record had been destroyed. (2){{U}}"After a lifetime of being honesty" says Collins, "all of a sudden I was basically being accused of stealing and treated like a criminal."{{/U}} This is what it means to fall prey to a nonviolent but frightening and fast-growing crime: identity theft. It happens to at least 500,000 new victims each year, according to government figures. (3){{U}}And it happens very easily because every identification number you have such as Social Security, credit cards, driver's license, telephone "is a key that unlocks some storage of money or goods," says a fraud (欺诈) program manager of the U.S. Postal Service.{{/U}} "So if you throw away your credit card receipt and I get it and use the number on it, I'm not becoming you, but to the credit card company I've become your account." (4){{U}}One major problem, experts say, is that the Social Security Number (SSN)—originally meant only for retirement benefit and tax purposes—has become the universal way to identify people.{{/U}} It is used as identification by the military, colleges and in billions of commercial transactions. Yet a shrewd thief can easily snatch your SSN, not only by stealing your wallet, but also by taking mail from your box, going through your trash for discarded receipts and bills or asking for it over the phone on some pretext. Using your SSN, the thief applies for a credit card in your name, asking that it be sent to a different address than yours, and uses it for multiple purchases. A couple of months later the credit card company, or its debt collection agency, presses you for payment. You don't have to pay the debt, but you must clean up your damaged credit record. (5) {{U}}That means getting a police report and copy of the erroneous contract, and then using them to clear the fraud from your credit reports which is held by a credit bureau.{{/U}} Each step can require a huge amount of effort.