People are feeding into the frenzy of identity theft and are getting duped into buying pointless subscription services that claim to protect your identity. These services cost anywhere from $89 to $129 a year. And what people may not know is that many of them are allied with the credit bureaus that are responsible for so much of the ID theft going on. There are also notification services that send an e-mail anytime something changes on your credit card. Clark got a solicitation just yesterday from a service wanting him to buy “identity theft insurance.” If your identity is swiped, it takes a lot to get it cleaned up. But the industry at fault in so many ways is now trying to profit from its lack of response to this problem. Identity theft comes in all shapes, but most of it is very low tech. The basic guidelines are as follows: do not put your social security number on any form; shred as much paper you can if it has personal or financial information on it; and check your credit reports once a year. Clark also wants more laws on the book allowing free credit reports and outlawing social security numbers on health insurance cards and driver’s licenses. California is one state that is very progressive in preventing identity theft. They make it very hard for anyone to get your number. That is the way it should be.