10 Tips For Avoiding Identity Theft
Identity theft is a very real threat in today’s information-heavy world. There are so many ways for someone to steal your identity which can leave you in dire financial straits. You need to be able to protect yourself from identity theft and here are some ways how to do that.
Protecting Yourself From Identity Theft
- Tips to Avoid Identity Theft – Be careful of your personal information. Never give out things like your name, social security number, birth date, or mother’s maiden name over the phone or internet. These are the main keys to your identity and once someone has them, it is very easy for them to pose as you.
- Credit Freeze Laws – Use a credit freeze. One way to prevent identity thieves from using your personal information is to impose a credit freeze on your credit reports. This effectively blocks lenders and other creditors from accessing your credit history which they would need to approve any loans for a thief.
- Credit Card Fraud – Keep up with your credit card. Every time you use it, make sure you get it back promptly. Never give your credit card number out over the phone unless you are the one who initiated the call and know who you are talking to.
- Learn to Identify Phishing – Beware of phishing. Phishing is a term used to describe online scams that try to steal your personal information. The most common are fake emails claiming to be from sites like Yahoo or Ebay that say they need your personal information to update their files.
- Avoid carrying your social security number with you. Many people who rarely use their social security number tend to carry it with them because they don’t have it memorized. Never carry that number with you because if you lose your wallet, then someone has immediate access to almost all your personal information.
- Caller ID Spoofing – Do not completely trust your caller ID. Spoofing is similar to email phishing in that your caller ID will display a phone number that is not the actual one of the person making the call. These identity thieves may claim to be anyone from banks to lottery prizes and will try to scam you for your information.
- How ot Prevent Online Identity Theft – Keep an eye on your credit report. You want to check you credit report every six months or so. If you see anything going on with your credit report that should not be happening, you need to contact the credit bureaus.
- Protect Yourself from Identity Theft – Shred all sensitive documents. Identity thieves can go through your trash to find old statements with your account information. Shred all of the paperwork that might contain any sensitive material before it goes in the trash.
- Be careful when using an ATM. It is not uncommon for people to lurk around public ATMs in the hopes of catching someone’s PIN. What is more is that some hackers have been known to modify ATMs that can store your personal information so the identity thieves can access it.
- Identity Theft Victim – Know how to recover from identity theft. If you believe that you are the victim of identity theft, there are steps you can take to help recover from it. You can do things like file a police report, place a fraud alert with credit companies, and document everything from who you talked to and what statements you receive.
This entry was posted on Sunday, August 2nd, 2009 at 12:25 pm and is filed under Personal Finance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.