Phonebusters published some interesting information on their web site and I thought that I should share it with all of you. They released their statistics for December 2009 and those stats include a snapshot of the year in identity theft. Those statistics seem to indicate that fewer people fell victim to identity theft, but the average loss was much greater.

In 2008, 11,511 reported being the victims of identity theft. These people were victimized out of a total of $9,697,199.05. In 2009, only 11,135 people reported being the victims of identity theft but they lost a total of $10,993, 348.72. If you do the math, this means that in 2009, the average identity theft victim lost $987.28.

It is time to take our swiping discussion to the next level. I wrote part 1 way back in July of 2009 – please refer to it for basic swiping techniques and safety. I am going to break up part 2 into 2 parts. Part one of part 2 will cover more elementary advanced techniques, while part 2 of part 2 will cover middle, advanced-advanced and trick techniques. Then second half of part 2 of part 2, the advanced-advanced techniques, I will begin part 1 of my own past professional exploits. This will likely take 3 parts. The first part will be included in the second half of part 2’s second half – my amateur start and progression into the first part of my professional career. Part 2 of this 3 part series will focus on the second and most exciting part of my 3 part career, professional competition. Part 3 of the 3 part series will talk about the third part of my 3 part career, the last part of my competitive career and first 2 parts of my teaching career. I believe I still have one part of my third part of my 3 part career left to be told.

In the first part of part 1 we will be discussing elementary-advanced techniques and in the second part of each of the parts I will share some memories I have of these wonderful swipes.