Another safeguard is to go paperless. Do not carry your Social Security card in your wallet. The average dollar loss per victim doubled over that of the year 2005. It's worth a trip to the post office or UPS store to insure that your checks go to the right place and are not intercepted by thieves. . Then send the suspected email to the company. Of the two, the use of existing accounts is usually detected much earlier, often by the credit card company noticing a change in spending habits and contacting the victim, or upon receipt of the first bill with fraudulant charges, and is easier to clear up. How You Can Protect Yourself You can hardly read a publication or listen to the news these days without hearing something about the rise in identity fraud. Never give your social security number to anyone unless it is for a transaction at your request and you trust the institution requesting the information. Often the first time victims become aware of these new accounts is when they get collection notices, often for thousands upon thousands of dollars. They ask that you send your bank account information so the money will be deposited directly into your account. Another fast-growing source of identity fraud information is a scam in which the victim receives a letter or "work from home" job offer through the internet, from someone purporting to need someone in your area to help them distribute money on their business transactions. There are steps you can take is to guard your Social Security Number, the universal doorway to all of your information. A recent study by a prominent research firm recently announced that there were over 15 million American victims of identity fraud in the past year. As hard as it is to believe, thousands of people fall for this every year, only to have their life savings stolen and whisked to an offshore account with no hope of ever recovering it. Big companies like eBay and Paypal actively pursue these scam artists. For any papers that