Not as prevalent as the media would have you believe.While fraud has been on the increase for last two decades since criminals figured out that drug dealing and armed robbery will usually net them less money and longer prison sentences, most are still stealing peopleu2019s identities to commit criminal acts. Most of what is called u201cidentity theftu201d is actually just run-of-the-mill credit card fraud which has existed since credit cards were issued. True identity theft is actually very rare.The true horror stories about people becoming long-term impersonators of others, using their identities to drain pension funds and bank accounts, or even filing deeds and selling other peopleu2019s homes are very rare. Most people are aware enough of their finances and arenu2019t distracted by other things so that ID thieves can really harm them seriously. For now most of the damage that is down is to credit card companies and banks that have to write off losses due to fraud.Having said that, in the near future with improvements digital printing, with the increase of people using cloud storage for their personal information and as credit restrictions caused by the mortgage debacle lessen, identity fraud may truly become the dangerous crime that the media has been hyping it up to be.