I have a friend that was a victim of identity theft, and let me tell you it was no fun, (it's possible that because he is a well to do guy the thief picked on him). to make a long story short, they new every little detail about his life including cell phone numbers/email addresses etc. they applied for new credit cards and put the mailing address to a hotel in NJ which they had a reservation under his name, if he wouldn't catch the theft right away, the damage would of probably been irreparable.
Of course we all say it will never happen to me, and we are stingy to have a decent credit monitoring, i myself have Credit Karama, but for all i know they are a bunch of crooks (it's free after all) and they go on and sell my information to the highest bidder. Of course back in the day when CITI had a credit monitoring service for 4.95 that was awesome, my question is what do you folks out there do? if you share my concerns what credit monitoring service do you have? and if you think i'm over reacting why are you not concerned.