Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in America, and one of the hardest to recover from. Each of us have only one identity, and once it's been stolen, it's a long and arduous battle back to good credit.

Indeed, the past three years have seen identity theft losses hover around $50 billion per year. In 2007, individuals recovering from fraud spent an average $550 in out-of-pocket expenses and 116 hours repairing damage done to an existing account, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The average loss in goods and services to businesses was nearly $49,000.

Fortunately, technology has come a long way in preventing fraud in the past 20 years. Before the evolution of advanced antitheft technology, fraud experts manually reviewed statements for unusual transactions. However, the customer was often the first to spot counterfeit or fraudulent transactions.