Prevent Identity Theft

What can I do to prevent Identity theft?

Mainly like people using your identity for credit ?

Get in touch with all three credit bureaus and put a freeze on your credit. This prevents anyone from pulling your credit without you calling and removing the freeze.

So what can be done to stop or at least minimize your chances of having your identity stolen by cyber-criminals? Take steps to protect yourself online by changing passwords frequently and making them more secure, especially credit card and banking logins. Be proactive by checking your financial accounts on at least a weekly basis, to see if any charges have been made you aren’t aware of or haven’t authorized. It may sound obvious, but never throw away anything with your bank information, credit card number, or social security number on it unless it is shredded completely by a high-end shredder (ones that make confetti, not just strips of paper).

Protecting yourself online also means never trust any email that asks for personal information. Remember, your bank and credit card companies will never ask you for this information, especially your password. If there is ever a problem with your bank account, they will send it through the mail directly. Phishing scams have become almost a daily occurrence, even a joke to many. The prince of Nigeria wants to send you money? Don’t believe it, and don’t believe anybody that wants to send you a check after you simply forfeit your credit card number for “security purposes”. These scams sound silly and stupid, but every year people fall for them. They get more sophisticated in nature every year too, so just be aware.

Of course for the ultimate in peace of mind, get protection and monitoring of your information by a company that specializes in this service. Many banks have a program that you can sign up for called “identity insurance” which basically bails you out after the fact. That’s better than nothing, but wouldn’t you rather have a company monitoring your information 24/7 to make sure it doesn’t get stolen? There are several companies such as Lifelock that provide this service for a reasonable charge. Perhaps it’s time to secure your information before it’s too late.

Prevent Identity Theft Ring www.IDTheftSecurity.com

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 10th, 2011 at 6:20 am and is filed under Identity Theft, Identity Theft Protection. 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.