12:40 PM EDT on Monday, July 17, 2006

By DAN STARKS / 6NEWS
E-mail Dan: DStarks@WCNC.com

Security breaches around the country are happening more and more. Valuable personal information is being used to rack up purchases and other charges, all in someone else’s name.

What can people do to protect themselves and their good name? All three of the major credit reporting agencies offer fraud alerts. If and when someone tries to use credit in the name of someone with a guarded account, that person would be called to confirm the transaction.

“I went to my credit report and noticed a dozen or so activities on there I had nothing to do with,” said fraud victim Mike Huckaby.

Huckaby put alerts on his credit after a thief stole his Social Security number.

“It was just a huge surprise,” Huckaby said.

The thief used it to get credit and rack up charges in several states, including thousands dollars in calls to Europe. After two years of countless letters and phone calls Huckaby finally got his credit straightened out, but he still doesn't know how it got in the wrong hands.

The 6NEWS investigators pulled dozens of police reports and found several victims with similar stories of personal information tampered with and unwanted bank charges, credit cards stolen and Social Security cards missing.

Todd Davis heads up Life Lock, a credit monitoring service.

“You are going to hear more about it while we let them make us victims,” Davis said. “Unfortunately every week we see another story about some enterprise, some corporation that has mishandled our data."

People can never be sure where their information is going to end up.

"Once they get that info, there's a wild, black market for identities,” Davis said.

Just pulling a credit report is not enough to protect accounts. People should call credit agencies and have them put up a fraud alert.

Davis said he's done that with his credit and he's sure it works. Another good way to cut the risk, is to stop pre-approved credit officers and junk mail.

To stop pre-approved credit officers, people need to contact the consumer credit reporting industry. However, stopping junk mail is a bit more time consuming. The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse has links to ways people can get their name off distribution lists.