I agree...simple credit card fraud shouldn't be counted as identity theft. There are plenty of ways for people to get your card numbers and your basic information that won't allow them to go on to more serious impersonation fraud. In my case I had someone file a tax return in my name and try to open credit accounts at a later date. The incidents were probably all unrelated but I had to put a 7 year fraud alert on my 3 major credit bureau accounts which required a police report, a report to the FTC, and letters to the credit bureaus.

Yea that sounds like a huge pain. Thanks for clarifying.

Does anyone know if there's a way to basically indicate, "I'm not planning to buy anything on credit" and freeze your credit the way you would freeze a bank account?

Then again, I don't have a great credit score to begin with, so maybe that is enough to keep people from being interested in impersonating me...

Thanks!