What Everyone Should Know About Reducing the Risk of Identity
Theft
Identity theft commonly begins with the loss or theft of a
wallet or purse. But there are many or high-tech and low-tech
ways criminals can get their hands on your personal and
financial information in order to commit identity theft. When
someone uses your name or personal information, such as your
credit card number, driver's license number, Social Security
number, telephone number, or other account numbers, without your
permission, you become a victim of identity theft.
Thieves steal your personal information and use it to open
credit accounts, bank accounts, telephone service accounts, and
make major purchases in your name. These criminals use your
sensitive information to take over existing accounts, or open
new accounts. Their criminal activities can result in damage to
your credit rating and denials to credit and job offers.
Protecting Your Identity
While there are no guarantees that your identity will never be
stolen or compromised, there are several steps you can take to
minimize the risks. Here are a few of them:
* Before you discard your personal information that you no
longer need, such as credit card receipts, billing statements,
and pre-approved credit card offers, shred them using, at best,
a diagonal-cut shredder.
* Create unique passwords and personal identification numbers
(PINS) and avoid using easily available information such as
mother's maiden name, date of birth, or last four digits of your
Social Security number.
* Do not give your Social Security number to people or companies
that you do not know.
* Guard your mail from theft. Promptly remove your incoming mail
from your mailbox and place outgoing mail in locked collection
boxes at your local Post Office.
* As an extra measure of security, install a lock on your
mailbox, even if mail theft is not an identified problem in your
neighborhood.
* Before disclosing personal information, even to people you
know where you shop or do business, insist on knowing the
reason(s) your personal information is required and how it will
be used.
Low-Tech Rip-offs: Thieves can do much damage with what they
remove from your mailbox.
Criminals are increasingly creative in the methods they use to
get their hands or eyes on your personal information, and
ultimately, your money. Here are some of the low-tech techniques
they employ:
* Dumpster Diving, one of the easiest ways for them to
appropriate your personal information.
* Mail Theft from unsecured residential mailboxes.
According to statistics, mail theft most often takes place at
unprotected and easily accessible mailboxes in public places.
* Shoulder surfing takes place when a thief watches or listens
literally over your shoulder as you enter your PIN into an ATM
machine. They may even follow you home or your place of work to
gather additional information about you.
High-Tech Techniques: Data transferred across the Internet
can be intercepted during its journey.
* Phishing and Pharming: While phishing is a scam in which
consumers are tricked into entering their personal information
via a bogus email and website form, pharming occurs where
hackers steal personal information from numerous people
simultaneously through something known as "domain spoofing".
They take over a DNS server and redirect user information to a
new website that they use to gather, collect, "pharm" illegal
information.
* Skimming: Thieves quickly and temporarily steal a
credit card and run it through a skimmer, a credit card reader
that has been reprogrammed to steal information off the card.
Fight Back: Reduce the Risks
Make education about the scams, schemes, and frauds criminal use
to steal your identity your priority in view of the rising
occurrence of this multi-million-dollar-problem. With education
comes prevention. Here are some prevention tips to help reduce
the risks:
* Safeguard your personal information. Never take simple things
for granted.
* Carry with your only the information you need. Always keep
your personal information and documents in a safe and secured
place of your choosing.
* Order and review a copy of your credit report at least once a
year.
* Shred documents containing your sensitive information before
discarding them.
For extensive information about ways to protect your identity,
visit "Protecting Your Identity" at www.Prot
ectingYourIdentity.blogspot.com/.