Identity theft is an amazing PR term, not-so-subtly shifting blame onto the individual whose identity was fraudulently used.
* The PII wasn't stolen from me, it was negligently exposed by services I contract with (and pay!) and others that I have no formal relationship with (like Equifax).
* It wasn't defrauding me, it was defrauding services I contract with (and others) who failed to verify my identity.
And yet somehow I'm obligated to do the cleanup myself.
Yup. The quickest way to stop these sorts of things from happening is to make the banks responsible for accepting/using stolen information(ie facilitating identify theft). For some odd reason, its the person's responsibility now that the bank used fraudulent information.
* The PII wasn't stolen from me, it was negligently exposed by services I contract with (and pay!) and others that I have no formal relationship with (like Equifax).
* It wasn't defrauding me, it was defrauding services I contract with (and others) who failed to verify my identity.
And yet somehow I'm obligated to do the cleanup myself.