One of the most precious things you own is your good name.

But there is a new class of criminals doing their best to steal your good name by using illegally-gathered personal information to falsely obtain credit cards, home mortgages and car loans - ruining the credit of the unsuspecting at the same time.

Identity theft is this nation's fastest-growing crime, made rampant by the exchange of personal information over the Internet and the paper trail of credit card receipts scattered like bread crumbs for the new generation of identity hijackers to scoop up.

State Attorney General Roy Cooper says there were 286,000 reported cases of identity theft in the state last year. He says one in three Americans will be victimized during the next 10 years.

By Tim Wilkins and Matt Elofson at The Robesonian.

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