Preventing Social Media Identity Theft

Social media identity theft is known as cybersquatting where you take help of the social media sites in order to get access to the identity of others. When someone takes unfair methods to pose as you that becomes extremely threatening. This is most commonly known as identity theft and can be a disruptive means to destroy someone else’s life. Think of the movie Net where Sandra Bullock found out that her existence was wiped out as someone else has taken her name and her social security number. She was forced to live a life in exile, unless she could prove her innocence.

Most who take help of social identity theft can harass people. You can be stalked for no reason at all. Using your identity the thief can also steal your money. A lot of social media theft can lead to financial loss. Often they take help of one’s mail id in order to get hold of funds. They can even open new accounts with the help of the identity. Most social media sites give the options of using either the real name or a separate user name. It is better to give your key name in places where the sites have demanded it. Often we do not get our desired username, as someone else is using it. So we have to take help of abbreviations or extra numbers or periods. All these added things can lead to problems.

If you get a username which follows your name closely, there will be lesser problems. This will also prevent others from registering with your name. Some names are common. Thieves generally target those names in order to achieve their means. You should take help of methods in order to manage your online identity and prevent the social media theft. This is a time consuming process, but at the end of the day, you do not want to lose your precious money or lose your identity. In order to assure that no one else is using your name in the social networking site, you should follow some basic steps.

You can set Google alerts for the name so that whenever you get an email, the name pops up. You can also start the StepRep account. This is known as a reputation manager which manages all the things online. If you feel that someone else has a profile which is very similar to your profile in the social networking site, you should immediately contact the site’s administrators. The reputation mangers can also look at the matter. If your profile is stolen, then it should be deleted immediately. It is better to take precautions against identity theft beforehand or else you will end up losing not only your money, but your identity as well.