Identity Theft: What it Means and How to Avoid It
Cases of identity theft are on the rise every year. There is need for you to protect your personal information so as not to give any impostor opportunity to use your personal information without your consent to commit a crime whether financial or otherwise. With proliferation of information especially on social media and through unguarded telephone conversations, you may not know when your personal information becomes vulnerable.
When I talk about personal information, I mean those information that can help another person use your name to gain undue benefits to your detriment. Such information include your Social Security number, your driver’s license, full name, address and birth date, credit card or bank account numbers. Others include car insurance or medical insurance account numbers or other details that can tip off people to your account-recovery questions, such as your pet’s name or your where you met your spouse. So, if anyone should use any of your personal information for his benefit without your consent, the person is involved in identity theft.
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How Your Identity Can Be Stolen
There are several ways by which your personal information can be stolen. These include:
Database Hacking: Some people are just wizard when it comes to technology. They can hack into database to collect personal information about other people. A good example of this is the Equifax Data Breach that affects 143 million consumers in which the hackers accessed Social Security numbers, birthdates, addresses, and driver’s license numbers. For your information, Equifax is one of the three major credit reporting agencies in the United States. This may not be any fault on your part. But at times, we make this easy for thieves to do through the way we dispose important document that contains our personal information. Instead of shredding, we just jump document in the trash can.
Credit Card Theft: Although you have a sort of protection on your credit card in case it is stolen, you need to quickly report the incidence.
WI-FI: We are happy to enjoy free surfing using public WI-FI. The danger about public WI-FI is that, any information you send on the internet is not encrypted. Anybody can see what you are sending including your passwords.
Unsecured Websites: It is dangerous to provide your personal information on unsecured websites. How do you know if a website is secured or not? Every secured website will begin with “https” instead of “http”. This means that the site is secured using an SSL Certificate (the s stands for secure). SSL Certificates secure all of your data as it is passed from your browser to the website’s server.
Mobile Phone: Mobile phones is fast becoming part of our being. We tend to depend on our mobile phone for almost everything. What type of information do you store in your phone? Have you ever thought about what would be the consequences if it happens that you lose your phone? Even, if you don’t lose your phone, someone may be peeking over your shoulder when typing or texting with your phone.
Phishing: Fishing can take different forms. It can be a website created to closely resemble a popular website with the intention of deceiving people to believe it is the original website. At times, it can be in form of communication with an email address that is similar with the one you are already familiar with. If care is not taking, you may not notice any difference. Thieves do this just to get personal information of another person.
ATM Skimming: This involves criminals placing a device on the face of an ATM to make it appears to be a part of the machine. The devise is actually placed there to steal your personal information.
How your Identity Can Be Used
The thief can use your identity for the following:
- Open new credit card in your name: If you see unfamiliar accounts or charges on your credit report or you notice withdrawals from your bank account that you didn’t make, this can be a red flag that someone has stolen your identity.
- Make purchases with your credit card: You may not necessarily lose your credit card before another person can use it to make purchase. If your credit card details are known to another person, such person can easily use it to make an online purchase. So, you need to be careful how you handle your credit card.
- Tax Filing: Do you know that another person can file your tax return? Don’t think the person likes you. He is doing it so that he can claim your tax refund. If you receive a letter from IRS informing you that you filed more than one tax return, it is a sign that someone has filed tax returns in your name. It can even be that your tax report shows that you have income from an employer you never worked for. When such happens, you need to quickly take steps.
- Utility accounts: Your personal information can be used to open utility accounts such as cell phone, electricity and gas.
- Use your medical care: Health care provider may not attend to you because you have exceeded your limit. You may even notice a condition you don’t have in your medical records. All these are signs that you are a victim of identity theft.
- You don’t receive mails any longer: Possibly you use to receive mails on a regular basis and all of a sudden, you don’t receive the mails or the mails come late, it may be an indication that somebody has changed your contact address. Instead of the mails coming to you, the person will be the one to receive the mails.
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How to Prevent Identity Theft
With personal security consciousness, we can prevent the loss of our personal information. By taking the following proactive steps, you will be able to save yourself the headache that come with the incidence.
Keep your personal information save: You don’t need to go about with your Social Security Number when you don’t need it. Some people store their Social Security Number on their phone. This is not safe at all. What this means is that, anybody that has access to your phone will automatically have access to your Social Security Number. If you have children playing with your phone, they can even mistakenly forward it to another person in form of text message and you may not be aware of it.
Don’t provide your personal information on encrypted websites. Look out for the closed padlock symbol and “https” on websites that you want to visit before you start typing your vital personal information. In short, use the websites that you trust.
Don’t reply emails you don’t trust its source: Some emails may ask you to provide your personal information or that you should click on a particular link. If you don’t know or trust the sender, it is safe not to reply such mail.
Make Use of Passwords: If you peradventure store important information on your phone or you access your mails via your phone, you can set a password that will either restrict access to the phone or some special applications on the phone. For example, you can lock your email application. So, if anyone should gain access to your phone, that does not mean that he can access your mails. You should also cultivate the habit of changing your password on a regular basis . You may not know if somebody has already peeked through your shoulder while typing to steal your password. I will even encourage you not to use the same password for all your accounts. Alpha-numeric passwords with the combination of special characters are difficult to steal.
Shred unwanted document: Instead of dumping document or expired credit cards in a trash can, you should shred or cut them into smallest pieces.
Check your mails often: It is important that you check your mails on a regular basis. If you know that you will not be available to pick your mail, you can contact people or organizations from where you are expecting the mail. Tell them to withhold such mails till you will be back. If you don’t receive mails as you ought to, you may contact the senders for explanations or clarifications.
Install firewalls and virus-detection software: Virus is a threat in the cyber space. That is why you need to install firewalls and virus-detection software in order to prevent attack on your system. A good firewall and anti-virus software will shield your computer from hacking.
Check your credit report: It is important that you check your credit report on a regular basis. If you can’t check your credit once in every month, you should be able to check it once a quarter. Any strange transaction on the report can quickly alert you of the incidence of identity theft.
Request for your credit card statements: If your credit card provider doesn’t send you statement, you should request for it. Online statement can come handy but you need to be very careful about where you save the statement. I don’t expect you to download the statement to the laptop or computer you share with other people in the office. Even, if you are the only one using the computer, it is possible that other people can access your document through the network.
Freeze your credit: You may choose to freeze your credit with Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion,. This will prevent people or organization from accessing your credit. You understand that before a new credit can be opened for you, a credit check has to be carried out. So, if your credit can’t be accessed, it means that no new credit or utility services can be opened in your name. But this can also work against you. Therefore, you need to assess whether credit freeze is what you need. If you want to apply for a new credit account, you will need to first unfreeze your credit.
Limit the Use of Social Media: It is not every information about yourself that you should take to the social media. Whatever information you share on social media is no longer private. Scammers can use your pictures to impersonate you. So, if they should have other vital personal information about you, it becomes easy for them to use your profile to misrepresent you.
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This article does not cover all you need to know about identity theft. However, I believe that you’ve gained some insight on the topic. Therefore, if you realized that your identity has been stolen, it is good that you quickly report the identity theft and get a recovery plan.
It is also important that you contact the three major credit bureaus to place a fraud alert on your credit records. With the fraud alert, creditors will need to contact you before opening any new accounts in your name. Even if it is just one credit bureau that can confirm your fraud alert, the message will be automatically sent to the other two credit bureaus. You will get your three credit reports free of charge. You can contact the credit rating agencies through the telephone numbers below:
- Equifax: 1-888-766-0008
- Experian: 1-888-397-3742
- TransUnion: 1-800-680-7289
In case the thief has opened a new account in your name or carried out activities which you didn’t authorize, you will need to contact your financial institution so that you can close such account.