Identity Thieves More Likely to Use Yahoo! Email

Those of you making purchases online with Yahoo! or other web-based email accounts may want to make note of this.

According to a recent report from checkmyfile.com, that identity thieves tend to use popular web-based email services like Yahoo! or Hotmail when making fraudulent online purchases. Yahoo! seems to be the favorite since 82% of suspected identity theft attempts have been made using this service. It doesn't surprise me that identity thieves would prefer these types of email accounts. After all, they are free, and you can open as many as you want under any number of different names. And they are difficult to trace because you can login from anywhere.

Problem? Those of us legitimate consumers who use these email services to place orders online are more likely to be blacklisted as identity thieves, or many companies may stop accepting orders from customers with these addresses since identity thieves use them. While I understand the concern, it seems a little extreme to label anyone who has placed an order with a Yahoo! account an identity thief. There are other reasons someone might place an order with a web-based account. I personally have been placing orders with my Yahoo! account for years because I don't want my main email account bombarded with promotions from these vendors. I know other people who use them because they share a main account with a relative or spouse.

Although I'm not pleased with this development, I can't blame them. Whatever can be done to at least slow down identity theft should be considered. Meanwhile, I'd better go change my Amazon account.