Incredibly, 10 million Americans are victims of identity theft each year. Either you have been a victim or you may soon become a victim. You may be a victim and don't even know it yet! One thing is clear: you need to protect yourself, your credit and your reputation. Make no mistake about it, those engaging in identity theft are getting extremely clever.

As the New York Times recently reported, criminals now can use your identity and Social Security number to get credit to buy tens of thousands of dollars of goods - without it ever showing on your credit report. One way criminals do this is to simply create a business using your name - and their new credit lines never appear on your credit report!

Worse, stories are appearing every day about how criminals are engaging in mortgage fraud, using your home and real estate to access home-equity lines. And before you know it, they have stolen your money.

As this crime grows, the authorities appear powerless to stop it. The Gartner group, a respected consulting firm, recently discovered that criminals engaging in identity theft have just a one-in-700 chance of ever getting charged or arrested.

And for those who have been victimized, you may be hit again. "Once it happens, you can never be certain that it won't happen again," Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, told the New York Times. "You can never let your guard down." [One way to protect yourself is by getting a PIP - Click Here.]

Don't Let Your Guard Down!

You can no longer rely on credit report reviews to make sure your credit is secure.

Recently the Economist magazine, one of the most respected publications in the Western world, reported on a new service that helps protect consumers from fraud and identity theft.

The Economist reported that entrepreneur Dr. Harold Kraft had an "epiphany" that Americans were leaving tremendous amounts of data - or "threads" - about themselves every time they bought a home, got a driver's license, engaged in legal activity, filed insurance claims - even paid their electricity bill.

So he devised an exciting new product to help Americans check on almost all their public records - and avoid potentially devastating problems.

Kraft also recognized that America's so-called public-records information is really a misnomer - ordinary Americans have no easy way to find out what is in their record, or to correct it if it is wrong.

So Kraft started a company, MyPublicInfo, to change that. MyPublicInfo officially launched its product called the PIP, or public information profile.

For just $79.95, Americans can now go to the firm's Web site, answer some multiple-choice questions to verify their identity, and see, within hours, their public records from thousands of databases across the country.

"They are in for a shock," the Economist warned of the reaction you may have after getting a PIP.

"There, on a screen, is their entire life, as any sleuth doing a background check would see it. A few will see crimes they never committed, or assets - supposedly hidden from the tax man - that they never owned."

Public-records information is not to be confused with a person's credit history. It is data collected by private-sector "aggregators" such as ChoicePoint and Lexis Nexis.

The data include birth certificates, business licenses, liens, convictions and more. Has someone opened a business using your name? Or a post office box near your home using your name or address?

You won't find this on a credit report, but you very well could through a PIP.

When a thief gains access to someone's credit information - perhaps by stealing a credit-card number or getting hold of some public information about you - it usually leads to a financial loss that can often be recouped.

On the other hand, identity theft or accidental confusion involving public records (for instance, when a clerk in a court mistypes a Social Security number) can lead to more devastating problems.

People have been denied insurance because they were incorrectly identified as arsonists. Some people in Florida were prevented from voting during the infamous presidential election of 2000 due to convictions that wrongly appeared on their records.

Using Kraft's PIP can be shocking. But the Economist says "it is a big step forward."

NewsMax agrees with that assessment. We rarely endorse a product or service. But we used Dr. Kraft's PIP ourselves, and we realized this service is essential for any Americans who want to protect themselves from fraud or other bureaucratic woes.

Regulators do not seem to be adequately dealing with the problem of identity theft, just as they have never quite found a way of effectively fighting another modern scourge, e-mail spam.

But as it did with spam during the past year, the ingenuity of private entrepreneurs may help - if not to make the problem disappear, at least to make it manageable.