Don’t Be An Identity Theft Victim

Stop Identity Theft Today! Thieves have many methods to steal people’s private information.  Some are quite sophisticated, while others are ridiculously simple. With more than 10 million victims every year in the U.S. alone, identity theft is considered one of the most serious crimes in the nation. It’s a crime that not only targets your finances, but your financial reputation. Years of built-up credit can be wiped away in a matter of hours, and it can take years to rebuild. Like many other crimes, identity theft also has a huge lingering impact both sociologically and emotionally.

As a result of its proliferation over the past few years, most U.S. states have implemented laws that are aimed at punishing fraudsters. Unfortunately identity thieves may try to gain sensitive information by asking for it in many nefarious ways.  For example, they will ask for it under the guise of a legitimate company.  This is either done over the phone or in an official-looking email.  Often, the email will say that there is a problem with your account and that urgent action is needed.  The email will then ask you to identify yourself by sending your account number, credit card number, or social security number or by entering such information on a web page.  The email and web page are not legitimate and any information you enter or send is saved and used by the thieves or sold to a third party.

Tech-savvy criminals can skirt the security and hack into online retailers and view information.  Most websites have security against this.  You can tell a website’s security status by looking at its URL.  http:// addresses are not secure.  The page that asks you for your credit card information should have an address that begins with https://.  That means that there is security that will keep others from viewing you information. But generally speaking no legitimate email will ever ask for your credit card information without a good reason.

Pretexting is another way to gain access and use people’s private information.  It is related to phishing.  Once a thief has access to your personal information, they will call your bank and pretend to be you or someone who you have authorized to act on your behalf.  They will often be successful because they are wielding your personal information, which bank personnel will require for security purposes.

Since there is no absolutely foolproof way to protect yourself from this crime you must constantly have professionals monitor your credit and send you warnings. There are plenty of precautions that can significantly reduce the risk of personal information falling into the wrong hands.  The best way is to get get good  identity protection and  credit reports on-line. Some of these can be tried free and here are a few that you can investigate.

Here are some of the most important things that you can do to protect your identity.

FREE ID Protection & Credit Report