Identity Theft Articles - How You Can Protect Yourself
One of the fastest growing types of crime in this century is identity theft
. It is for this reason that many writers (with me included) have began writing identity theft articles so as to help people not be victims of this type of crime.
I don't know whether there is any particular way of dealing with people who are involved in this trade as identity theft is something that happens almost every day. Thieves would like to get hold of your credit card information so that they can be able to purchase stuff falsely in a way to impersonate you. Worse still, if they get more information about you, they can do greater harm apart from the financial harm. They can also open new credit accounts under your name. Some of them will even use the information so that they can get employed or get a lease/mortgage. The question is: how does one protect themselves against such things? Here are a few suggestions:
- Keep all records dealing with your bank account, credit cards and investment accounts in a private place (I would suggest a safe).
- You can put a 'fraud alert' on credit reports
- When using passwords, don't use very obvious combinations like dates of birth or names; mix both numbers and letters to make it harder for hackers
- Regularly check your credit reports
- Avoid giving in your personal information to strangers especially through email or other non-trusted websites that are online
- A monthly review of all your bills is recommended
- Any checks that have been canceled should be kept safely
- If you are at an ATM machine and you feel as if someone is looking at you, feel free to walk away and use another one
- Avoid carrying very personal information e.g. PIN numbers, account numbers and passwords everywhere you go
- Password protect all your personal information on your computer
These are just a few basic things you can do to protect yourself against identity theft. You can read more identity theft articles to find out more ways on the above.