How did people in the past prevent identity theft? I mean before the photos and new secure technology on identity documents were available?
In: 568
Until the 1970’s it was hard to get a credit card, and the credit limits were a lot lower than they are now, so if someone stole your card they couldn’t do as much damage with it as they do now. Major transactions (like for furniture) would be done by check and the store would grill you, and phone the bank to verify your account. If there was any suspicion, you would be declined. It wasn’t like now, where its considered to be a basic right to use your credit card.
Banks were also very picky about who they gave out bank loans to.
And there were no bank cards. You’d do transactions at your local branch, so there was a greater chance the teller would notice something when something is off.
Also, you couldn’t automatically use a credit card if you travelled. If you wanted cash overseas you usually used traveller’s cheques, again with a limit on the amount, plus the clerk checking your signature, passport, etc. If you went to a foreign bank to get cash from your home account, you’d have to go through a grilling and maybe wait 24 hours while they checked.
I’m guessing there was a big boost in fraud in the 1990’s with electronic banking becoming common. Before then, it could happen but the technology wasn’t there to do it easily. Everything moved more slowly so there were more checks on what you could do with your ID.
EDIT: typos
I would posit that every single person having an identity (vulnerable to theft) is a relatively modern idea. People in the past generally didnt care to verify who you said you were. Unless you had ties to royalty it really didnt matter who this peasant was compared to the next. In they eyes of society they were interchangable. Digital bank accounts, government benefits, and certified credentials being commonplace to exist in socety didnt really come into being until the 20th century. Prior to that, if your job required identification then it would be at the behest of the King or Queen to furnish it upon you. If you counterfit royal identification they’d probably just chop your head off. So thats a pretty good deterrent
Identity was largely established by witness. If you could get a handful of people to swear it was you, that was usually enough. It’s only been over the last century or so that your identity became paperwork rather than your physical self and actions.
I think our modern conception of “identity theft” is largely a product of telecommunications and interconnected security and tracking systems; the credit reporting, the criminal databases, the social security system, etc.
In the old days, a fraudulent charge on a credit account was probably a one-off thing; it didn’t follow that the swindler would then be able to apply for more credit in your name, or impersonate you in public, or try your social media password on some big bank websites, etc. Those systems weren’t so standardized and interconnected.
But in a world of interconnected databases and authentication systems, detailed personal information on even Joe Nobody can be a juicy target, even for someone on the other side of the world.
I feel like it’s a more modern problem. Everyone in my village would know me and my family, and the economic movement of money was more contained in said village. So I’m a blacksmith and I sell horse shoes to a few other hamlets and towns right? Some highwayman bonks me over the head, steals my wares, and goes on to try and turn a quick profit with my horse shoes. First guy he goes to will realize “Hey now, this isn’t the same guy, I saw him a month ago!”
The way it was described to me by a history teacher was kind of the same concept. Don’t think the world has always operated at the same scale. If someone was to pretend to be someone else at the school (our school was 400 kids) wouldn’t you notice? Now imagine if instead of 4 years, you spent your whole life around these folks.
I’m sure it was prevalent in some ways, but as others have said seals/makers marks/brands/etc. were hard to replicate and people tended to notice when something was wrong.
I think our modern conception of “identity theft” is largely a product of telecommunications and interconnected security and tracking systems; the credit reporting, the criminal databases, the social security system, etc.
In the old days, a fraudulent charge on a credit account was probably a one-off thing; it didn’t follow that the swindler would then be able to apply for more credit in your name, or impersonate you in public, or try your social media password on some big bank websites, etc. Those systems weren’t so standardized and interconnected.
But in a world of interconnected databases and authentication systems, detailed personal information on even Joe Nobody can be a juicy target, even for someone on the other side of the world.
Back in the olden-times of the 70’s-90’s, when you used a credit card, they used a “ka-chunker” (as everyone seemed to call it) a heavy device that you set the card in and laid a 2-part paper form (originally with a carbon paper layer, a thin sheet of black carbon, before self-carboning forms were developed) over it. You swiped a heavy platen across the mess which made a “ka-chunk” sound, and gave the card and the form back to the purchaser.
That’s why credit cards had/have raised numbers and names – the platen “bruised” the carbon paper and imprinted the card data physically on the paper. The customer signed the stacked form, and then you tore off a copy as the buyer’s receipt of the transaction.
It was important that you not just toss the customer copy, since it had your full CC number and name on it. I had a friend who’d troll through the airport and dig those out of the trash and use them to purchase stuff, somehow (I think he’s been in jail forever, kind of an idiot). That was really a primary form of ID theft, and the solution was to physically protect those sheets and destroy them properly.
Other ways were if someone got hold of your checkbook, they could write checks at places not hardcore about IDs; if someone intercepted or stole a check made out to you, they could endorse it and cash it (happened to me when I forgot my jacket with a check in the pocket); some people would go to churches and find birth and baptism records of people who had died young without a social security number, get those birth certificates, and create fake IDs with them. It was much more about gaining access to paper documents back then.
Back in the olden-times of the 70’s-90’s, when you used a credit card, they used a “ka-chunker” (as everyone seemed to call it) a heavy device that you set the card in and laid a 2-part paper form (originally with a carbon paper layer, a thin sheet of black carbon, before self-carboning forms were developed) over it. You swiped a heavy platen across the mess which made a “ka-chunk” sound, and gave the card and the form back to the purchaser.
That’s why credit cards had/have raised numbers and names – the platen “bruised” the carbon paper and imprinted the card data physically on the paper. The customer signed the stacked form, and then you tore off a copy as the buyer’s receipt of the transaction.
It was important that you not just toss the customer copy, since it had your full CC number and name on it. I had a friend who’d troll through the airport and dig those out of the trash and use them to purchase stuff, somehow (I think he’s been in jail forever, kind of an idiot). That was really a primary form of ID theft, and the solution was to physically protect those sheets and destroy them properly.
Other ways were if someone got hold of your checkbook, they could write checks at places not hardcore about IDs; if someone intercepted or stole a check made out to you, they could endorse it and cash it (happened to me when I forgot my jacket with a check in the pocket); some people would go to churches and find birth and baptism records of people who had died young without a social security number, get those birth certificates, and create fake IDs with them. It was much more about gaining access to paper documents back then.
Identity was largely established by witness. If you could get a handful of people to swear it was you, that was usually enough. It’s only been over the last century or so that your identity became paperwork rather than your physical self and actions.
I don’t think they did. If you read old spy novels, one common method used to get a false identity is to find a birth certificate of a child that died soon after birth, and use that to apply for a passport, etc. I don’t think this would work now, and maybe it didn’t work back then, but this method is brought multiple times in old novels.
Latest Answers