 |
Preventing Identity Theft - It can be done!
How can preventing Identity Theft
be accomplished?
There
are number of things you can do to prevent your identity from being
stolen, most of them are simple everyday things. First and
foremost, just by learning and understanding how identity fraud can
occurs, and some of the basic things you can do to minimize your risk,
you're already ahead of the game. Here are some of the things
you
can do to help reduce your risk:
- Request eBills from all of your
billers (ex.
electric, hydro, gas, cable, cell phone...if you're not already
prepaid!, etc.), and cancel paper statements. While
many of
us like to have physical copies of our statements, they increase the
risk of personal information being stolen. These bills
usually
contain our full name, address, account number, phone number, and
sometimes even part of our SSN. These statements can be
stolen
while in transit in the mail, stolen from your home, or even from your
garbage when you throw them out.
- Keep your electronic files secure.
Although most companies will store your statements for you on
their secure servers, they don't store them forever, and even when they
do, accessing archives can take some time. So I download all
of
my statements each month and save them in a secure folder on my
computer (which is also backed up!). Just be sure that you
have a
password on your computer or at least on these folders so you won't be
at risk in case you lose your computer or someone steals it.
- Tear up or shred any statements
or documents
with personal information on them before throwing them out.
Fraudsters will actually rummage through your trash when
you're
not home. It's amazing what they can piece together about
your
personal life by just looking through your garbage!
- Use the bill pay feature
in your online banking account to pay your bills. i.e. Don't
pay
by check. Each check you mail out has your name, address,
phone
number, and bank account number. Paying electronically is
much
safer.
- Notify your bank(s) if your
checks are ever lost or stolen.
Depending on your situation, you may also consider closing
that
account and opening a new one. Though once you setup all of
your
payments and direct deposits, closing accounts can become pretty
inconvenient.
- Use bank login security features,
and don't always use your mother's maiden name or your birthday as
passwords and/or security questions!
- Quickly cancel your credit or
debit/ATM cards
when they're lost or stolen, and fill out any fraud affidavit forms
provided by your bank or credit card company. This basically
provides a record that you lost your card, and that you're not
responsible for paying any fraudulent charges that may appear
on
your account.
- If anyone calls
you claiming to be from your bank, credit credit card company, or some
otherwise trusted organization asking to verify your SSN or other
personal information, don't talk to them, hang up! Or at
least
ask them for their number and call them back, or ask them to mail you a
form to your house (they should have your address on file already, so
don't give it to them). Your bank or credit card companies
will
never call you and ask for this information; they already have it!
- Watch out for website Phishing,
which is when fraudsters setup websites that look like your bank's
website (for example), and they capture your information as you type it
in, and later use it to access your real account. They can do
this by having a website address that looks like that of your bank, but
may have a common spelling mistake or variation, or different domain
extension. For example, bankamerica.com or bankofamerica.net
(instead
of bankofamerica.com). Major institutions will typically have
a
number of these variations registered already to avoid this problem,
and constantly monitor for potential phishing, however, you should
always keep your eyes out for this and be familiar with what these
websites typically look like.
- Check your credit report
regularly. At
least once per year, you'll want to check your credit report at each of
the bureaus. Note that there are services that allow you to
check your
report for free (seeing your credit score is usually an additional
charge) once per year, but make sure that you check all three reports.
Even if you have to pay $15, it's well worth it.
What you're looking
for are accounts that you haven't opened, or even accounts that you've
closed, but that still have open balances, which may be an indication
that someone is using the account under your name. Check out www.annualcreditreport.com
for
your free credit report.
- Lock or put fraud alerts on your
credit. You
can contact each of the three credit bureaus (Equifax, TransUnion, and
Experian), and request that they either put fraud alerts on your
account or lock your credit. See below for more information
on
this topic.
Return from Preventing Identity Theft to Identity Theft
|
|
