By AMY HORTON

The Brunswick News

The Bible teaches that a good name is more valuable than all the world's riches, but it's the pursuit of riches that ends up costing many a person their reputation.

Increasingly, though, it's the greed of others that destroys through a crime known as identity theft. The age of plastic and the advent of electronic banking and buying, along with the daily onslaught of unsolicited credit card offers showered upon consumers, makes it easy for thieves to capture personal information worth its weight in paper and coin.

A combination of factors makes identity theft an increasing problem, said Russ Willard, a spokesman for the Georgia Attorney General's Office, which oversees Georgia's Stop Identity Theft Network.

"It involves the ready availability of credit, the abundance of non-requested credit card offers, and the lack of verification out there when you go in for credit," Willard said. "If I have your Social Security Number, your date of birth and your mother's maiden name I can do just about everything in the world to affect your credit."

According to the Federal Trade Commission, identity thieves may open new credit card and bank accounts, establish phone or wireless service, buy a car, get a job and commit crimes in someone else's name.

When the bills come due, it's the victim of identity theft who pays.

Few cases of identity theft have been reported to Glynn County Police, said Chief Matt Doering, but when it does occur locally, identity theft is most often a crime of opportunity.

"Someone steals a purse or breaks into a car where a person's identity information is left in there and then the thief, if you will, seizes the opportunity to then use that person's ID," Doering said. "That's what I mean by opportunity. They don't go out of their way to break into the car looking for (identifying information). The opportunity presents itself."

Willard said identity thieves fall into two categories — "a relative or acquaintance who preys on an unsuspecting friend or family member and utilizes their access to information to basically assume their identity, get credit cards issued in their name and write checks on their name.

"The second is, for lack of a better term, sort of the inadvertent exposure," Willard said.

That might occur when one moves and fails to have their mail forwarded. An unsolicited credit card offer comes to the old address, and a thief gets hold of it and obtains credit in another's name.

It can also happen when a consumer fills out a credit application at a store.

"You give the application to the clerk, who then takes it and puts it in a file but not before making a copy for themselves that contains your name, address and social security number," Willard said. "We've had other situations where individuals have stolen mail out of mailboxes."

One crime ring the attorney general's office busted would follow a mail truck around and break in when the postman got out to distribute mail.

In 1998, Georgia became only the third state in the nation to pass legislation addressing identity theft at Attorney General Thurbert Baker's behest.

The Georgia Stop Identity Theft Network now operates from Baker's office. It's goal is to educate Georgia consumers, businesses and law enforcement about identity theft and teach them ways to prevent it from occurring.

"Over the years we've refined our ability in terms of search warrants where we're able to stop identity thieves. We're now able to get them before they commit the crime, just after they've amassed the tools," Willard said. "We'll catch them with a car full of fake driver's licenses and credit cards and charge them with racketeering and identity theft."