Brianna Smith has a car, a furnished apartment, and a new color television complete with digital cable. Not bad for a five-year-old.

There are countless “Briannas” here in Sacramento and across the country, as African Americans are using other people’s names, often their children’s or that of other relatives, to obtain goods and services.

The Federal Trade Commission, which monitors complaints, lists such crimes as the most common form of identity theft in the African American community.

The FTC defines identity theft as occurring when someone uses your personal information without a person’s knowledge or consent.

“This is becoming the primary consumer protection issue of the Federal Trade Commission right now,” said Jerry Steiner, an attorney for the Federal Trade Commission as he spoke recently at a Community Forum on Identity Theft hosted by Congresswoman Doris Matsui at the Sacramento Library Galleria.

Matsui echoed Steiner’s thought.

“We can’t keep up with the ingenuity of people who like to steal our identities,” Congresswoman Matsui said.

Steiner said, “We know from the complaints that we receive, that once the theft has occurred, the problem becomes endless.”

Sacramento County Sheriff Office Detective John Johnson, who works with the Sacramento Valley Hi Tech Crimes Task Force, points to the high profile case of a Sacramento man, Anthony Taylor, who stole golf legend Tiger Woods’ identity in 1999.

“Every so often, the detective that dealt with that case gets calls from Tiger himself or his financial advisor,” Johnson said. “His credit is still screwed up. He applied for a gas card in Florida where he lives and got declined. Who gets declined for a gas card?”

Robin Wilkins, a supervising probation officer with the County of Sacramento Probation Department, knows all too well what an inconvenience identity theft can be. Wilkins attended the forum to see if, indeed, the steps she had taken to clear her credit, were the correct ones.

Wilkins received a letter thanking her for opening a credit account with Expo Design, an upscale interior design store owned by Home Depot. She knew she hadn’t opened one, as there are no Sacramento locations. She believes an employee of Home Depot copied her information when she applied for an account there and used it to open an instant credit account.

An instant credit account is one where typically a cashier will, while you’re standing in line, ask if you want to open an account, you give your information - or someone else’s - and voila, you’ve got credit. Before Wilkins even received the letter, someone had used up the entire $7,500 limit they were given. The same person also opened an account at Mervyn’s and charged $400 worth of merchandise in her name.

It was easier for someone to victimize her, than it was for her to recover from it.

“It was a nightmare. You have to prove you are the real person,” she shared.

Wilkins had to contact each financial institution that extends the credit to the stores where the theft occurred, report the incident to the police and obtain a report, fill out an ID theft affidavit and get it notarized and sent to those agencies, and contact the three credit bureaus to see if anyone had started any other accounts in her name. She also visited the DMV to see if anyone had gotten licenses or tickets in her name.

Experts say this is another popular form of identity theft, referred to as “criminal identity theft.” Criminals will also use other people’s names when they get arrested by the police. That name coupled with a date of birth, can land its real owner in deep trouble. That person won’t know until he goes out for a job that requires a background check and discovers he has a warrant out for his arrest.

In California victims of this type of theft can obtain a court order to be placed on a California Identity Theft registry. Police officers can check the registry to confirm that you are not the person they are looking for.

Like Wilkins, Willie Watson, an independent associate with Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc. believes his bout with identity theft was an “inside job.” But fortunately, for him he got a heads up when someone tried to open a Bank of America account using his info.

A salesman who actually uses his own product, Watson purchases his company’s IdentityTheft Shield program and got an e-mail from the program’s administrator, Kroll Background America, that an inquiry was being made in his name.

“I had the Shield, but how many other people is this happening with?” Watson wondered.

“Once someone has stolen your information, you are 60 percent likely to become a victim again. It’s only a matter of time,” said Aaron Gonzales, an independent associate with Pre-Paid Legal and area coordinator for Northern California.

With IdentityTheft Shield you get a credit report and help understanding how to read it, monitoring for suspicious activity and notification when accounts are issued in your name and when negative remarks are added to your credit report. The service also comes with an identity restoration component.

With the restoration aspect, an expert, which Gonzalez said is often a former CIA or FBI agent, will navigate the system so a client won’t have to, conducting searches of national databases looking for information an individual may be unaware of, ultimately returning a victim’s credit report to good standing.

“That’s huge,” Gonzalez said.

In addition to the time it takes to clear matters up, the Federal Trade Commission said identity theft victims spend an average of $1,500 to clear their name. Watson and Gonzales say one of their clients had to spend $35,000 to clear his name. The man was arrested after robbers, who had previously stolen his wallet, dropped his ID at a crime scene. Police officers showed up at his workplace and removed him in handcuffs. He had to hire a lawyer to help prove he was at work at the time of the robbery.

Thieves can gain access to your information in a number of ways. They “dumpster dive,” going through garbage for discarded information such as account numbers, phone numbers, passwords, and social security numbers. Experts urge people to shred all documents before throwing them away.

Internet users are also targets. The term “phishing” refers to thieves who send fake e-mail messages, complete with replicas of your bank’s logo, saying that there is a problem with your account and that they need information from you to fix it. Thieves “fish” for information to take advantage of you.

“It’s a clever way to get you to give up information you shouldn’t be giving,” Johnson said. “The folks we deal with in Sacramento are drug users, hustlers, or people trying to live better.”

Many, he adds, are addicted to crystal meth.

“They’ll steal my wallet from a locker at the gym and trade my information for dope,” Johnson shared.

The more copies of the information they make, the more drugs they score. Addicts, he said also scour neighborhoods, breaking into mailboxes and “scoring” new credit cards, and personal checks.

“To an ID thief that’s as good as gold,” said Steve Lamp, a US Postal Inspector who also sits on the Sacramento Valley Hi Tech Crimes Task Force.

The problem is that a person isn’t usually aware that something is wrong until after it’s happened.

“You don’t even know until you get a call from us,” Johnson said of contact law enforcement makes when suspects are found with another person’s checks in their possession.

The purpose of Matsui’s forum, organizers said, wasn’t to scare people but educate them on how to protect themselves.

There are signs that you may have been a victim of identity theft, such as being denied for credit when you know you’ve got good credit; collectors calling for debt you haven’t incurred; and a bill that you normally get hasn’t arrived in the mail.

It pays to be diligent.

“Your credit is really your reputation,” said panelist Donald Rehorn, of By Design Financial Solutions.