Identity theft is one of the fastest-growing types of financial fraud. Without stealing your wallet, someone can steal your financial identity by using as a little information as your social security number. Using a variety of methods, criminals steal credit card numbers, driver's license numbers, social security numbers, ATM card numbers, telephone calling card numbers and other key pieces of individual identities. They use this information to impersonate their victims, spending as much money as they can in as short a time as possible before moving on to someone else's name and account information. To read more about identity fraud, check out the website at http://www.ckfraud.org. The websites at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/alerts/idenalrt.htm, http://www.creditreporting.com/identity-fraud.html, and http://www.ago.state.ma.us/pubs/ident2.htm provide further information on how to fight against identity fraud. For related information about credit cards and credit records, check out the web page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_card_number. The website at http://www.fraud-in-1.com provides additional information about other kinds of frauds such as computer fraud, insurance fraud, etc.
2. Virginia Virginia is a state in the United States, which was named to honor Queen Elizabeth of England (often referred to as the “Virgin Queen”). It is the first permanent English settlement in America, at Jamestown (http://www.apva.org/jr.html) in 1607. Virginia played a central role during the American Revolution, which saw more battles fought on her soil than any other state. Many of those battlegrounds are now national historic sites, and are visited by thousands of tourists annually. Virginia also holds the distinction of being the birthplace of eight US presidents, so sometimes Virginia is called the “Mother of Presidents”. For more information about Virginia, please check out the website at http://www.virginia.gov/.
3. US Postal ServiceUnited States Postal Service (USPS) is the official organization responsible for providing postal service in the United States. It is the result of the mandate for post offices by the United States Constitution. Originally a cabinet department, it was later converted to a government-owned corporation. The history of the United States Postal Service dates back to 1639 when the first official notice of a postal service in the colonies appeared. The General Court of Massachusetts designated Richard Fairbanks’ tavern in Boston as the official repository of mail brought from or sent overseas, in line with the practice in England and other nations to use coffee houses and taverns as mail drops.
On July 26, 1775, members of the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, agreed “... that a Postmaster General be appointed for the United States, who shall hold his office at Philadelphia, and shall be allowed a salary of 1,000 dollars per annum...” That simple statement signaled the birth of the Post Office Department, the predecessor of the United States Postal Service and the second oldest department or agency of the present United States of America. On the same day, Franklin was appointed Postmaster General.
In the more than two centuries since, the United States and the Postal Service have grown and changed together. Today, the Postal Service fuels the US economy and delivers hundreds of millions of messages and billions of dollars in financial transactions each day to eight million businesses and 250 million Americans. For more information about the US Postal Service, check out its official website at http://www.usps.com. For an annotated timeline of the US postal history, please visit the web pages http://www.usps.com/history/his1.htm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_postal_history.
4. Social Security NumberSocial Security Number in the US is similar to Personal Identification Number in China. When Social Security Numbers were first issued in 1936, the US federal government assured the public that use of the numbers would be limited to Social Security programs. Today, however, the Social Security Number (SSN) is the most frequently used recordkeeping number in the United States. SSNs are used for employee files, medical records, health insurance accounts, credit and banking accounts, university ID cards, and many other purposes. For more information about Social Security (including its history), check out the website at http://www.ssa.gov/history/. The web page at http://www.howstuffworks.com/social-security-number.htm explains how the system works in the US. For detailed official information about Social Security in the US you can check out the documents at http://www.ssa.gov/history/history.html. In particular, the page at http://www.ssa.gov/history/termorigin.html provides information on the origin of the term “Social Security”. The official website for the Social Security Administration in the US is http://www.ssa.gov.
