Identity Theft Prevention
Identity theft prevention is increasingly becoming a topic of interest. As the number of victims of credit card theft grows, it's unlikely that the hackers will ever be caught. Unless it's a high-profile case, such as the New York man arrested recently for stealing the identities of movie and TV celebrities, it's unlikely the law enforcement can or will do anything. That's reason enough to institute your own identity theft prevention program to minimize the risk of becoming an identity theft victim in the first place. Identity theft prevention starts with protecting your purse or wallet. How fat is your wallet and how many unnecessary credit cards are in it? What happens when that wallet is pinched? The identity thief goes for these items, not for the cash a wallet might contain, but for the information the wallet contains about you such as your driver's license, social security card, credit cards, debit cards, checkbooks, insurance cards, and emergency information. A smart identity theft prevention strategy is to minimize the identification information and the number of cards you carry to what you'll actually need. Do not routinely carry such things as your Social Security card, birth certificate, passport, or more than one credit card. Another identity theft prevention strategy is to protect your trash. Whether it is bagged and left at the curb or tossed into a dumpster, your garbage can be a target of any thief who wants it badly enough. Your trash is potential a gold mine of personal information. It could provide the same type of information that your mailbox would, and it isn't a federal offense to steal it. The best identity theft prevention idea is to tear or shred any documents with personal information before disposing of them. Protecting your information at home or work is another good identity theft prevention strategy. Your home and office are huge reservoirs of personal information and an enterprising thief can break in at a convenient time when no one the home or office is empty and get whatever information he or she is after. Be cautious about where you leave personal information in your home, because the information there is also vulnerable if you have employees, roommates, outside help, or service people in your home, or if others have temporary, unrestricted access to your home or office. Other identity theft prevention strategies include protecting your telephone listing and applications. Consider not listing your residence telephone number in the telephone book, or consider listing your name and residence telephone number without your address. And when you complete either a loan application or credit application, make certain the business considers the safety of that information by storing the forms in secure files and protecting their premises with a monitored security system. Remember, these credit applications generally contain all the information necessary for a criminal to use and abuse your credit identity so minimizing the number of credit applications you complete is a good identity theft prevention technique. |
