Our digital world offers a great many conveniences that many of us have come to rely on. At this point, who among us can imagine life without the internet? Like with anything else smart people invent to make our lives better, there’s the ever-present class of bottom-feeders that use it to take advantage of others. These are the criminals that present a serious challenge to authorities who often seem to be one step behind these digital deviants. They’ll come after you through your internet-connected PC, your smart phone, the checkout at a local retailer or even through your plain old landline telephone. Here are some of the most common ways these cyber-scum can get their hands on your personal information and use it to hijack your identity.

1. Dumpster Diving

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This is a very time honored method which still yields good results for identity thieves. As the name suggests, these miscreants comb through trash looking for discarded items that may contain personal information. Such items might include credit card statements, tax forms, legal documents and bank statements. When discarding anything that has personal information printed on it, care should be taken to make sure it is completely destroyed. Documents containing personal information should be shredded or burned before being disposed of in the trash. Some people go as far as shredding anything that includes just a name or address and although that may seem a bit paranoid, we certainly won’t argue against that practice.