How did people in the past prevent identity theft? I mean before the photos and new secure technology on identity documents were available?
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You had to be diligent in shredding/burning things and what not. The other thing to keep in mind is all these technologies that came around made it easier to do these sort of crimes. My wife had her identity stolen 16 or so years ago. She reported it to the police but they didn’t really do anything, I guess it was sort of a growing problem at the time so they didn’t have a good way to handle it, anyway she ended up making a bunch of calls and doing a bunch of research and was able to figure out who it was, she then took all that information to the police and at that point they took care of it. She also had to spend hours on the phone to get all the accounts and things closed that were opened in her name, some of those places refused to do anything without proof, typically in the form of a police report. These days you can cancel credit cards and lock accounts at the click of a button. We’ve gotten calls from our credit card company where they saw something strange that didn’t line up with our habits so they flagged it and contacted us.
You had to be diligent in shredding/burning things and what not. The other thing to keep in mind is all these technologies that came around made it easier to do these sort of crimes. My wife had her identity stolen 16 or so years ago. She reported it to the police but they didn’t really do anything, I guess it was sort of a growing problem at the time so they didn’t have a good way to handle it, anyway she ended up making a bunch of calls and doing a bunch of research and was able to figure out who it was, she then took all that information to the police and at that point they took care of it. She also had to spend hours on the phone to get all the accounts and things closed that were opened in her name, some of those places refused to do anything without proof, typically in the form of a police report. These days you can cancel credit cards and lock accounts at the click of a button. We’ve gotten calls from our credit card company where they saw something strange that didn’t line up with our habits so they flagged it and contacted us.
It actually was a lot easier back in the day to impersonate somebody else. Stories abound of people in pre-industrial times conning others into believing they were some kind of royal or something. But, the consequences were a lot higher too. They’d hang or gibbet you over a lot less than impersonating a duke back then.
I think it’s important that identity theft was less useful for fraud purpose than it is today, but identity theft did happen a lot, as did simply reinventing one self.
You see a lot of records of soldiers from the 1810s all the way up to 1930s where it is noted that the person served in the army under one name and then a few years later renlisted possibly to a different branch under a new name
It actually was a lot easier back in the day to impersonate somebody else. Stories abound of people in pre-industrial times conning others into believing they were some kind of royal or something. But, the consequences were a lot higher too. They’d hang or gibbet you over a lot less than impersonating a duke back then.
It actually was a lot easier back in the day to impersonate somebody else. Stories abound of people in pre-industrial times conning others into believing they were some kind of royal or something. But, the consequences were a lot higher too. They’d hang or gibbet you over a lot less than impersonating a duke back then.
I think it’s important that identity theft was less useful for fraud purpose than it is today, but identity theft did happen a lot, as did simply reinventing one self.
You see a lot of records of soldiers from the 1810s all the way up to 1930s where it is noted that the person served in the army under one name and then a few years later renlisted possibly to a different branch under a new name
I think it’s important that identity theft was less useful for fraud purpose than it is today, but identity theft did happen a lot, as did simply reinventing one self.
You see a lot of records of soldiers from the 1810s all the way up to 1930s where it is noted that the person served in the army under one name and then a few years later renlisted possibly to a different branch under a new name
In short, there was really no way to prevent it. But there were less incentives to actually commit identity theft back then and you had to be rather motivated to actually try. Which brings me to a fun story:
My dad was 15 and walking around the streets of Jersey City in the early 50’s and stumbled on an envelope from the NJ DMV; inside was a brand new drivers license(obviously no picture on it, just a name, address and license number – he still remembers the guy’s name, but I don’t).
What does he do, well, he does what any other bored fifteen year old who lives in a Italian slum, he runs off and joins the fucking the newly founded Air Force. He just walks in with this license he found in the street and signs up as this guy. And best part THEY LET HIM!
He goes off to bootcamp and makes it 90% of the way through. This is the part that most people question whether the story is real or not, but he has his platoon photo hanging on his wall to this day.
Best part, the only reason he got caught, his parents decided to look into where he disappeared to some 6 weeks after he left.
I hope this illustrates how little was done to prevent identity theft back in the day.
In short, there was really no way to prevent it. But there were less incentives to actually commit identity theft back then and you had to be rather motivated to actually try. Which brings me to a fun story:
My dad was 15 and walking around the streets of Jersey City in the early 50’s and stumbled on an envelope from the NJ DMV; inside was a brand new drivers license(obviously no picture on it, just a name, address and license number – he still remembers the guy’s name, but I don’t).
What does he do, well, he does what any other bored fifteen year old who lives in a Italian slum, he runs off and joins the fucking the newly founded Air Force. He just walks in with this license he found in the street and signs up as this guy. And best part THEY LET HIM!
He goes off to bootcamp and makes it 90% of the way through. This is the part that most people question whether the story is real or not, but he has his platoon photo hanging on his wall to this day.
Best part, the only reason he got caught, his parents decided to look into where he disappeared to some 6 weeks after he left.
I hope this illustrates how little was done to prevent identity theft back in the day.
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