The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) warns of a new scam that targets people who are trying to adopt children. Identity thieves attempt to collect personal information and funds from people by posting online ads for adoptions, such as “Baby Needs A Home.” The operators of the site are fraudsters say that they have an overseas orphaned child in need of adoption, and ask victims to send applications.

The fraudsters claim they aren’t affiliated with an adoption agency because no such agencies exist in their area. They instruct victims to send pictures of their family and to complete forms that required personal information, such as Social Security Number and their mother’s maiden name. Fraudsters sent the victims a birth certificate and pictures of a child. They also ask victims to send hundreds of dollars via money order, credit card, or wire transfer to a bank account for legal fees, claiming they will “ship” the child upon receipt of the funds.

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In a scam called “synthetic identity theft,” thieves combine a real number with a fictitious name and other information to create a whole new (but fake) person. They then establish new accounts with their fictional identities.

If enough new data comes in with your Social Security number, credit reporting agencies may view the new identity as legitimate and create a separate file (or instead create a “subfile,” which remains associated with your file). As long as your file and your identity thief’s file are separate, a monitoring service will not pick that up. The biggest potential harm to you may be if your Social Security number ends up in databases recording the thief’s criminal activity—and you’re then asked to answer for the crimes. In addition, a debt collector might come after you based on the Social Security number alone.

In most cases, synthetic identity theft goes undetected for years. And you’d have no right to view the other credit report that contains bits of your information (most likely your Social Security number), as it would violate the privacy of the other person (the identity thief). You’d only find out after the thief defaulted on making payments and you started to get harassing calls from debt collectors, who have tracked you down based on your Social Security number.

A credit freeze is one of the best things you can do to stop this type of identity theft before it begins. Assuming you don’t plan to take out a lot of loans in the near future, the freeze will hardly interfere with your everyday life at all.

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The Better Business Bureau wants you to know about common scams as you shop online and in stores this holiday season.

Here are some of the scams they’re warning us about:

* Online shopping scams: Beware of abnormally low prices for a normally expensive item. It may be safer to shop locally and conduct transactions in person rather than on some websites that are known for fraud, like Craigslist or eBay.
* Identity theft at the mall: Keep a close eye on your shopping bags or check out at the register, and stay alert of your surroundings.
* Bogus charitable pleas: Beware of solicitations from charities that demand on-the-spot donations, don’t deliver on their promises, or don’t follow through.
* Phishing e-mails: Beware of e-cards from companies like UPS or Fed-Ex with links to tracking information. Also, make sure the e-mail isn’t malicious before clicking on any links or opening any attachments from the e-mail.

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