Your luck doesn't have to be so bad as the California man, who, in a series of unrelated events, was hit by a car on Sunday, mugged on Monday, and shot on Tuesday. But, if you lose your identity to a con man, your foul luck level could be close.

With a con man-launched barrage, stolen identities are rising at a rate of up to 10,000,000 per year, creating a problem that is now approaching crisis proportions.

If we were a fire-eating, Bible-thumping preacher, we would deliver our sermon something like quoting from a legal thriller, something like this:

Con men everywhere are taking rifle-shot focus on a very specific target: your social security number. (Your bank account number would be nice too. That's secondary targeting.) Once obtaining this they are finding it a cake-walk to taking over your paper identity, and, thus, opening up a free-flowing channel to all of your financial assets.

They count on--and are successfully cashing in on--a seemingly human axiom: a one-sided exercise in the "Law of Inertia." So, you must surmount this inertia, conquer it, if it exists.

As never before, if you do not wish to provide the con man a feeding tube into your bank account, you must be highly selective about the handling of your financial affairs. All of them. The time is now.

How?

Here are a few suggestions:

1. When ordering over the internet remember that URLs that begin with "http" are not secure sites. The sites that begin with "https" are. First step is to foil hackers as best you can.

2. Verify all email and telephone offers by checking them out directly through a customer service number you locate, yourself, in your phone book, then follow through with a phone call, only one you initiate. If you can't find a phone number there, call the reference desk of your public library and you will probably have the requested number in minutes.

3. If you suspect an obvious, serious scam--many of which these days read like a legal thriller--don't hesitate, looking for a cause dujour. Contact the FBI or your State Attorney General's office. Do it with cat-quick speed. Famed French World War II hero and President, Charles DeGaulle, had a very forgettable message to leave from his death bed. His last words were, "It hurts." This is the same near-death way you'd feel if, no matter what you'd accomplished in life, a con man cleaned you of your identity.

4. Never reship any product on behalf of a stranger in a foreign country.. If you don't know the contents, which could be stolen goods, you might be unwittingly participating in a crime. You don't want to become a self-indulgent, navel-gazing victim.

5. Never respond to email or phone calls asking you to verify anything. These requests are most often placed by the con man under the guise of being a bank, credit card company, retail store, government agency official--any manner of subterfuge. It's always best to check out the "source" represented, independently of any reference numbers or call-back data provided by the inquirer. You don't have to be a peripheral visionary to see these scams coming. They're frontal. They're clear. Act accordingly.

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