If you think you are immune to identity theft, think again.
A new study found there are more than 10,000 identity fraud rings throughout the country. An identity fraud ring is a group of people actively collaborating to commit identity fraud.
The study by ID Analytics' ID: A Labs found many of these rings were made up of career criminals, but also a large number consisted of groups of friends or members of families.
The southeastern United States has the greatest concentration of fraud rings. Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Texas and Delaware were among the states with the highest numbers of fraud rings.
A significant number of fraud rings were found in rural areas of the country.
The study examined changes in personal identifying information among accounts such as changes in name, address, date of birth and social security numbers. In addition, it analyzed nearly 1.7 billion "identity risk events" including applications for credit cards, payday loans, wireless phones, utilities and other financial services products. The study was conducted from January 2009 to September 2012.
