Employment fraud

Identity theft can facilitate employment fraud if the thief uses the victim’s personally identifiable information to obtain a job. The Identity Theft Resource Center predicts that for 2009, there may be an increase in the fraudulent use of SSNs &mdash; by people who either do not have a SSN or for some reason cannot use their own &mdash; to obtain work. This could aversely affect the victim’s credit, ability to file his or her taxes, and ability to obtain future employment, among other things. Not only can identity theft lead to employment fraud, but employment fraud may be a means to steal someone’s identity. Identity thieves may use scams that falsely advertise employment as a means to phish for personally identifiable information. The thief can then use this information to commit other crimes while the job-seeking individual remains unemployed and victimized.