How to Prevent Identity Theft
I desperately wish I had known how to prevent identity theft before it ever happened to me. It is much easier, given the right tools and know-how, to prevent identity theft than it is to recover from an identity theft that has already occurred.
Don’t fall for scams!
Perhaps a fake loan officer offers you a super low rate if you act now, spurring you to hurry and hand over your information without much time for research. Or perhaps it’s the phishing scam where you receive an email asking you to “click this link” to log into one of your online accounts (could be eBay, a bank, your ISP, Paypal, Amazon, etc) and confirm your details. The link actually takes you, however, to a cleverly disguised site of their own, made to look exactly like the real site, and often with a URL that looks very similar. When you log in, however, you are actually sending the scammers your login details, so they can then log into your real account. Handing your information over to the wrong person can happen any number of ways, so the first step to protect yourself from identity theft is to never hand over your personal information without first checking the person out. As for emails, you can just ignore them. If you believe one to be potentially legitimate for one reason or another, get a number and call them rather than sending the information through email or an online form.
Watch your credit card accounts closely
Another means of identity theft is the credit card skimmer. Often a scammer will have a credit card skimmer. This is a device that swipes a card just like a regular credit card reader, but saves the information to an internal storage device that can then be used by the scammer. All the scammer has to do is pay a clerk or waiter a small amount per credit card number. That clerk or waiter then double-swipes every card – first into the real credit card machine, then into the skimmer.
This works particularly well with waiters, as they take your card and disappear for a bit in order to run it – you don’t actually see them swipe the card. So how do you protect yourself from identity theft if you have no way to see it happening? Well, in this area, your best bet is the simplest – never let your credit card out of sight, and watch your credit card statements closely. If anything looks unusual, investigate immediately!
Protect your social security number
You might receive an email from your ISP asking for your social security number. Or you may lose your wallet containing your social security card. However the social security number is acquired, this simple bit of information may allow a scammer to open new credit cards in your name.
It is vital that you learn how to prevent identity theft of this sort, as this has the potention to wreak great havoc on your life, as the scammer works his or her way up to purchasing cars and other high dollar items using your credit. Sometimes it can take a year or more to clear everything off of your credit.
In order to prevent this type of identity theft, first and foremost, protect your social security number! Do not give this information out freely.
Unfortunately, there is no surefire way to prevent this information leaking, so the next step is to utilize an identity theft prevention company. I personally have tried many, and prefer TrustedID. But one way or another, find a company that will monitor your credit, watch for new cards opened in your name, watch for your address being used improperly, and so on. This way, if your identity is stolen, you can stop it immediately before any further damage is done.
