Identity Theft – Prevention is a Whole Lot Less Painful than Cure
Identity theft is big business for criminals, an absolute nightmare for those who suffer and it is on the increase daily.
Will you be the next victim or do you have enough prevention knowledge to avoid your i.d. being stolen?
Imagine how you will feel if you wake up one day to find your house now has a second mortgage against it or your savings account has almost been emptied? How could that have possibly happened?
Sadly, it's a story we hear more and more in this ever changing world of technology and the problem is none of us are immune from it happening to us.
What is identity theft?
Your identity and all your other personal information are very valuable. Not only to you, but to the criminal who wants to use it. Criminals can easily find out your personal details and then they can and will use them to open bank accounts, savings accounts and any number of credit cards, store cards, loans, state benefits and official documents such as passports and driving licenses in your name. It feels like they have taken you over.
The scary thing is it's easier than you can imagine. Let me give you a few examples below:
- Have you noticed transactions on your bank or card statement you don't recognise?
- You start to receive bills from companies you do not know
- You apply for a balance transfer on a credit card to be told that you took one out three weeks ago
- You see a small donation to a charity on your card. This is a simple test they do to make sure the card is going to work for them, and a small donation does not raise suspicion.
- Have you been expecting information from a bank or mortgage company and it's not arrived?
- Your credit report is now showing data that is unknown to you personally
- You now discover that you also have a second mobile phone account with a huge bill outstanding and it's got your name on it.
And, if that's not bad enough, someone could be going around claiming to be you!!. In reality they have not taken over your identity, they have sort of hijacked it or cloned it if you like. After all, they cannot look like you easily, and they have no need.
You wouldn't believe that they can divert your mail too!
This is serious stuff and so much damage can be done before you are even aware anything is wrong.
Like the old saying goes "prevention is better than cure"
Today there is a whole new business springing up around the whole area of identity theft and some rather expensive solutions too.
Imagine if I took your passport, but with my photo in it, to prove my I.d.? Why would anyone question it unless they happened to know you personally? Criminals aren't daft enough to do this on your door step. They will do it some sensible distance away.
There is an answer to this problem of identity theft, and steps that you can easily take right now to put some prevention in place against it. You will find all you need in this ebook, so take action before it's too late!
Questions and Answers
Identity Theft refers to a situation where in a person makes use of your personal details such as your social security number and name for their personal gains. There are numerous kinds of identity theft. A recent study by FTC revealed that identities of more than 9 million Americans are stolen every year.
In this article, I give you the last five of ten tips for preventing your identity from being stolen. These are solid prevention tips, not identity theft restoration insurance. In my last article, I gave you the first five very important identity theft prevention tips. You can find restoration help here.
Identity theft, one of the most insidious forms of white-collar crime, is a federal crime under the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act. It occurs when charlatans steal your personal and/or financial information to use your credit accounts, tap your bank accounts, get new credit in your name, file fraudulent tax returns, get cell phones in your name, access your insurance benefits, and so on.
Medical identity theft, by definition, is what results when a thief steals someone else's social security number or health insurance information in order to obtain medical benefits of their own, particularly in the form of hospital visits and prescription drugs. The two facets of medical identity theft involve financial breaches of security and healthcare fraud. Long-term detrimental effects can easily result from this increasingly prevalent type of identity theft.
Identity theft affects over 9 million Americans alone each year. As the degree of damage varies from individual to individual, the lasting effects are nearly the same. ID theft ultimately affects your credit score. And in many cases ID theft can cause major damage without the victim even realizing it at first.
You can protect your credit (and your family’s credit) with some outstanding features provided by LifeLock. At the time of this writing, there are even several websites offering LifeLock coupons. You can simply run a simple search engine query on “LifeLock coupons” and you’re sure to come across several sites to review and choose from.
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How do you protect yourself from identity theft? This article provides some tips for you that you can start doing today.
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