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MERCHANT 911 PRESS RELEASE ARCHIVES

June 2006

Identity Theft hits new highs --- Saturday, June 10, 2006

Merchant 911 has a spread sheet. It tracks the reports of credit card theft, ID thefts, and that sort of thing.

This year, the number of breaches involving Social Security numbers along with names, addresses and the other information needed to commit Identity Theft are already approaching the record numbers seen last year for credit card losses - 55 Million.

"There's no doubt in my mind," says Tom Mahoney, Merchant911 Director, "That Identity Theft will hit an all-time high in 2006." Looking at the spread sheet, Mahoney points to the entry of the Veterans Administration's loss of a laptop computer containing the data of every Veteran discharged since 1975. "That's 26.5 million potential identity thefts in one theft," he continues. "With the other reports that we've seen, that brings the total to over 31 million already. And it's only June."

Mahoney said that at-risk credit cards alone have already reached 1.4 million.

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