Lemondrop

Men are from Mars, women are from Venus -- even when it comes to how we handle crimes like identity theft.

According to a recent survey, 28 percent of women said they had been victims of identity theft compared with 21 percent for men. Of the women, 80 percent were "most concerned" with identity theft compared to less than 60 percent for men. Well, maybe that's because we're 26 percent more likely to get our ID stolen.

But this brings up the classic chicken-and-egg scenario: Are we really more likely to be targets, or are we targets because we're more paranoid?

Click here to find out, after the jump.

Survey Says: It's Actually a Little But of Both

Tom Rusin, chief executive of Affinion Security Center, thinks ID fraud frets more females because our purchasing habits put us at higher risk. Michael Stanfield, chairman and CEO of identity risk management services company Intersections Inc., told Lemondrop that women might actually be easier ID theft targets because we tend to swipe our plastic in public more often than men, making us more vulnerable.

But because we're more paranoid, we're often hyper-vigilant (at least more so than our male counterparts) and more likely to take swift action after spotting suspicious activity.

"Men might see this crime as something that they can deal with on their own," he told CNet. "It's no different than a man who waits three weeks to go to the dentist after experiencing a toothache, whereas a women might be more likely to address the ache much more quickly."

A Rough Honeymoon Period

Kim Grant, 25, from Los Angeles, just had her identity stolen about a month ago. She found out through her cell phone company that someone from Texas was signing up for credit cards under a slightly different name and telling them that the name had changed due to marriage.

"In this case, I can foresee my battle being uphill, more so than if I had been male," she told Lemondrop. "Not only do I have to go through the standard stuff to take my identity back, but I now have to make certain this thief hasn't claimed 'marriage-related name changes' for other unauthorized financial transactions."

Now it's Grant's responsibility to convince companies not only that she didn't get married, but that this isn't some elaborate fraud scheme she dreamed up herself. And the thing is, signing up for credit-report monitoring doesn't necessarily catch these types of fraudulent activity, she discovered; it can only stop new inquiries from companies you don't have a relationship with.

"I think had I been male, there would have been fewer problems. As women commonly do marry, and paperwork does take time to legitimately change your name, it is possible for scam artists to exploit this fact to great success."

Taking It Like a Man

It was pretty unbelievable that Bruce McClary got his identity stolen. He works for a nonprofit provider of credit counseling and consumer education. True to the identity theft survey, he was already monitoring his credit, which is how he caught the problem early and got the credit card companies and the cops involved.

"If I hadn't been monitoring my credit on a regular basis, this could have turned out much worse," he told us. "Getting the police involved allowed me to provide a case number to the credit reporting agencies when I requested that they place fraud alerts on my reports. I also disputed the fraudulent activity and it was promptly removed."

So What To Do?
You know the drill: Keep your eyes on your credit, don't give out your credit info to suspicious online sites, etc. But even though we all know this, do we follow? How frequently do you check your account activity online? It kind of seems like a no-brainer after hearing a story like this, so if you're not, what's stopping you?