Tag: identity theft prevention

Our 10 Best ID Theft Prevention Tips

Keep­ing your iden­tity safe is impor­tant. If some­one else is able to get their hands on your sen­si­tive iden­ti­fi­ca­tion infor­ma­tion, not only can they pre­tend to be you for all intents and pur­poses, but they can also take your money, your credit and your entire life  The anonymity of this crime makes many peo­ple feel help­less to pre­vent it.
There is no need to be hope­less though. There are some easy ways that you can keep your iden­tity safe, start­ing today, that can make a world of dif­fer­ence in pro­tect­ing your infor­ma­tion. Here are the Top 10 ID theft pre­ven­tion tips that you can imple­ment today to help to make your iden­tity safer.

1. Don’t carry extra credit or debit cards

Do you have one pri­mary account that you use for spend­ing? Then keep that one card with you and lock up what­ever other ones you may have in a safe loca­tion at home where thieves won’t think to look. Not only does this make it harder for an iden­tity thief to get their hands on all of your accounts, but it will also improve your spend­ing habits.

2. Cross­cut shred­ders are a must have in your home

We all like to joke about the guy who got his tie caught in the shred­der, but those old shred­ders really don’t do any­thing. Straight line cut paper is easy to remove from your trash that is curb­side and can be eas­ily taped together by an iden­tity thief. Look for a cross­cut shred­der that spits out tiny lit­tle pieces of paper. This will dis­cour­age an iden­tity thief to no end.

3. Recy­cle Your shred­ded information

Tak­ing your per­sonal papers that have been shred­ded and dump­ing them into a huge recy­cling bin full of paper elim­i­nates the curb­side thief. Mixed up with lit­er­ally tons of other paper, your iden­tity sim­ply gets lost in the mix.

4. Never carry your Social Secu­rity card

The only rea­son why you need a Social Secu­rity card with you is to pro­vide a copy of it to a new employer, and even then you could make the copy at home. Other com­pa­nies may request your Social Secu­rity card for ver­i­fi­ca­tion of who you are, but you can request alter­na­tive meth­ods of identification.

5. Use one time credit card num­bers while online shopping

Many credit card com­pa­nies offer an online shop­ping ser­vice where they will assign your account a unique num­ber that is good for one pur­chase only that you have autho­rized. This pre­vents iden­tity thieves from get­ting your actual credit card num­ber if you hap­pen to have spy­ware of key­log­ging soft­ware inad­ver­tently installed on your computer.

6. Don’t surf the inter­net with­out anti-virus, anti-spyware, a fire­wall, and anti-malware soft­ware installed.

The inter­net is a dan­ger­ous place thanks to the actions of a few, so to keep your­self safe while work­ing, surf­ing, and play­ing online, be sure to have all the pro­tec­tive ser­vices prop­erly installed and updated on your com­puter. Iden­tity thieves have even started to cre­ate viruses that affect Apple’s O/S, so always remem­ber that every com­puter you own is a poten­tial target.

7. Keep a list of all your finan­cial account num­bers  locked away.

If you do hap­pen to lose your wal­let or purse, or you sus­pect you have become the vic­tim of iden­tity theft, time is of the essence. By hav­ing this infor­ma­tion eas­ily acces­si­ble, you can sim­ply grab your list and start mak­ing calls instead of fum­bling around on the inter­net and through your files try­ing to find it after the fact.

8. Don’t give out any infor­ma­tion to peo­ple you don’t know.

Why would some­one you not know or a com­pany you’ve never done busi­ness with need your iden­ti­fi­ca­tion infor­ma­tion? To steal your iden­tity, that’s why! If you don’t know who is ask­ing for your info, don’t give it to them until you’ve ver­i­fied the authen­tic­ity of their request.

9. Beware aware of “phishing.”

Phish­ing is one of the biggest causes of iden­tity theft around today. Iden­tity thieves get you to give them your infor­ma­tion through a bogus e-mail or even phone call demand­ing you ver­ify your infor­ma­tion to save an account you might have with a legit­i­mate busi­ness. You talk to a con­vinc­ing per­son on the phone or you get trans­ferred to a legit­i­mate look­ing web­site where you “ver­ify” the info, but what you are really doing is sim­ply hand­ing your iden­tity away. You haven’t won any­thing. Your account will not be closed. You do not ever have to give some­one a pass­word or your PIN num­ber. Always, always, always ask ques­tions if you are unsure!

10. Some­times You Can Share Too Much Information

With the inven­tion of social net­work­ing on the inter­net through the var­i­ous web­sites, we tend to get very friendly with a lot of dif­fer­ent peo­ple who we may not even know per­son­ally. All it takes for an iden­tity thief who has friended or fol­lowed you to get into your home and take your iden­ti­fi­ca­tion infor­ma­tion is for you to post that you’re going to be out for a few hours, that you’re headed out on vaca­tion for a cou­ple weeks, or that you’re in charge of the school car­pool for next week.

Chances are you have pic­tures uploaded of your home that even show your file cab­i­nets, safes, or lock­boxes in the back­ground behind a smil­ing face. Be care­ful about who you decide to let fol­low you & friend you, and then be care­ful about what you share with them. With­out intend­ing to do so, you could be set­ting your­self up for an iden­tity theft inci­dent and not even real­ize it.

Iden­tity theft is the fastest grow­ing crime cur­rently in the United States, and it is grow­ing around the world as well. You can pro­tect your­self against iden­tity theft eas­ily by fol­low­ing these Top 10 guide­lines as con­sis­tently as pos­si­ble, while also look­ing into a credit monitoring pro­tec­tion plan that might fit your extended needs. Iden­tity theft is a $40 bil­lion per year prob­lem – don’t let it cost you too.