In 2007, the crime called identity theft has spread like a Florida wildfire across America. More than 10 million Americans became identity theft victims.  Consequently, losses to businesses and individual victims reached to as much as $49.3 billion.  The crime of identity theft was a menacing terrorist in America last year. As if that’s not enough, identify theft is also an increasing crime all over the world – as well as debilitating.  We should all be warned of this threat and the potential grave consequences.   Until now, sad to say, there is no fool-proof measure to avoid identity theft as organized theft rings are almost always one step ahead of everybody.  This is why perhaps the only way to lessen the possibility of identity thief is to seek proactive protect identity theft companies. Some individual companies offer identity theft protection services for a monthly fee.  Other identity protection plans also offer more features such as fraud alerts, credit monitoring, identity theft insurance coverage, stop of pre-approved offers, and scanning the Internet for misuse of your credit card and social security numbers. Furthermore, some identity theft protection plans being offered by financial institutions reimburse for out-of-pocket expenses up to a certain dollar amount and helps with the process of contacting creditors, writing affidavits and filing reports.