How To Protect Yourself From Identity Theft Learn how to protect yourself from identity theft

Identity theft is a serious crime that is on the rise. It occurs when your personal information is stolen and used without your knowledge to commit fraud or other crimes. You can’t guarantee that your identity will never be stolen, but you can minimize your risk by safeguarding your personal information and paying attention to possible signs of identity theft.

Below are some steps to follow to help safeguard your personal information:

• Don’t give out personal information and credit card or bank account numbers on the phone, through regular mail or e-mail, or over the Internet unless you initiated the contact, you know who you are dealing with, or the Web address (URL) begins with "https"
• Memorize your Social Security Number (SSN), passwords and personal identification numbers (PINs). Don’t carry them with you
• Shred or destroy unwanted documents that contain personal information such as charge receipts, credit offers and applications, insurance forms, physician statements, bank checks and statements and expired credit cards and unused credit card applications
• Keep your purse, wallet and items that contain personal information in a safe place at home
• Match your credit card receipts against your monthly bills and check your monthly bank statements for accuracy – some fraudulent transactions involve small dollar amounts
• Never click on links sent in unsolicited e-mail
• Do not use easily available information like your mother’s maiden name, your birth date, the last four digits of your SSN or your phone number for PINs or passwords
• Use firewalls, anti-spyware, and anti-virus software to protect your home computer
• Always have a picture driver’s license. This makes it more difficult to change and forge
• Annually review your credit reports for accuracy
• Report lost or stolen credit cards immediately
• If you don’t have a locked mailbox, put your outgoing mail in post office collection boxes or take it to your local post office and promptly remove mail from your mailbox after it has been delivered

Watch for signs of identity theft. The quicker you catch it, the less likely you’ll incur a major hassle or expense. Follow up with creditors if any of the following occur:

• Your bills don’t arrive on time. This could mean an identity thief has taken over your credit card account and changed your billing address
• You notice inaccuracies or unauthorized transactions on your credit reports (Enroll with LifeLock, it helps users to proactively obtain free credit reports each year)
• You notice charges on your financial account or billing statement that you did not make
• You receive unexpected credit cards or account statements
• You are denied credit for no apparent reason
• You receive calls or letters about purchases you did not make
• You may also receive a call from your credit card company asking if you made any outstanding charges or large purchases at an unusual location. This would be a tip-off that your information has been taken even though your physical card wasn’t.

By the time the average person realizes they have become a victim of identity theft, it is much too late. By this point, the victim’s financial stability and credit rating may be impacted significantly. What can you to to protect yourself from identity theft? Here are some useful suggestions for you:

1. Secure personal information in your home, especially if you have roommates, employ outside help, or are having work done in your home.
2. Use a paper shredder to shred sensitive documents before discarding them.
3. Ask about information security procedures in your workplace or at businesses, doctor’s offices or other institutions that collect your personally identifying information. Find out who has access to your personal information and verify that it is handled securely. Ask about the disposal procedures for those records as well. Find out if your information will be shared with anyone else. If so, ask how your information can be kept confidential.
4. Never tell anyone your personal information over the phone or send it through emal, or fax. Most legitimate companies will not request this information from you via phone or any other unprotected source.
5. Monitor your credit report on a monthly basis to watch for unusual activitiy. Many credit report services will alert you to such activity and even assist you in resolving issues. We have partnered with Equifax to offer you their Credit Watch product.
6. Place passwords on your credit card, bank, and phone accounts. Avoid using easily available information like your mother’s maiden name, your birth date, the last four digits of your SSN or your phone number, or a series of consecutive numbers.

By following these steps you can lower your risk of becoming an identity theft victim. Being informed is the most valuable protection against identity theft.

Here are some helpful tips on what you can do to protect your personal financial information and assure identity theft doesn’t ruin your good credit rating. You may ask yourself, "Why do I need identity theft protection?" If you’ve ever thrown away a receipt, lost a credit card, or received a questionable email asking for personal information, you are making yourself a victim of fraud, and a great candidate for identity theft protection.

How many promotional statements have you tossed that may have your mailing address and full name indicated right on them? Identity theft often doesn’t require much to leave you in a financial mess.

The question becomes, "What can the average person do to ensure that personal information is kept personal, and to guard against possible theft?" Here is a list of suggestions that will help you get the best possible identity theft protection.

Look at your credit reports. These reports contain the kind of information an identity thief is interested in, and the statistics that you should have a good understanding of, in terms of theft protection. The report shows what accounts you have and how you pay your bills.

The law allows you to obtain a free version of this report at least once a year. If an identity thief is operating with your information, this report will show it in some way.

Review the credit reports. Look for any benchmarks that would tell you of possible theft, like inquiries from companies you haven’t contacted, accounts you didn’t open, and debits on accounts that can’t be explained. Check to see that all personal information is correct and that an Identity Thief hasn’t tampered with it.

Review your financial statements. Look at your accounts and billing statements on a regular basis. Watch for any changes that seem odd, like debits that you can’t account for and other things that could be the sign of possible theft.

Many victims of identity theft are the last people to know about the situation. Identity theft protection only works if you put it into action before a situation can occur. Sometimes you may only discover you’ve been victimized when you are declined for a car loan or mortgage because of something negative on your credit report.

You may find out about credit cards you’ve never owned that were applied for by an identity thief through a phone call from a collection agency looking for money on unpaid debts. Investigate these occurrences with your bank as soon as you become aware of them to.

Knowing your own security vulnerabilities and how to prevent identity theft are prime methods of its protection. In a world of online shopping and paper statements, it’s your best defense against having to deal with the fallout of a quick, easy crime many people are committing.

Does Lifelock work seems a popular question and to answer it we need to look at a few official numbers. For every one million Americans the Government expect 30 000 to be a victim of identity theft. Lifelock has around one million customers and so far less than 80 of them have had to make a claim on their guarantee. I’d say those figures pretty much prove conclusive that Lifelock does work but if not, there is more….

How Does LifeLock Protect You From Identity Theft?

Lifelock works by placing fraud alerts on your credit files on your behalf. This means that any company who does a credit check on you causes a red flag to be raised and you are informed. Credit checks are carried out when someone applies for credit, a loan, a credit card etc. Lifelock also ensure your name is removed from mail lists as the less your details are spread around the less chance of them falling into the wrong hands.

How well does Lifelock work compared to other identity theft protection companies?

Lifelock stops your identity from being stolen where as other identity theft protection companies such as IdentityTrust monitor your credit and report unusual activity to you AFTER the event. Because Lifelock place a fraud alert on your credit file the only way possible for someone to misuse your name to gain credit is if the provider of the line of credit did not do a credit check and because identity theft is now a major problem (its the fastest growing crime in America) this is very unlikely to happen.

Does Lifelock work with credit experts because i have heard I can do everything that Lifelock does all for myself and save some money?

Lifelock use experts who know exactly how the system works and make sure your fraud alerts are in place at all times. The 3 credit bureau’s don’t like you to place a fraud alert against your name and they certainly do not like your name being removed from mail lists as it is the sale of these lists that make them so much money. For this reason they don’t make it easy for you to do it yourself. Each alert only lasts a certain amount of time and for it to be effective you cannot let it lapse.

You certainly could do the work yourself just as you could walk to work this morning. Question is why would you walk when you have a car and why would you take it on yourself to protect your own identity when Lifelock can do it for a few cents a day. They take care of dealing with all the credit bureau’s for me and they give me a $1 million guarantee that they have done it correctly and no one can steal my identity.

Not sure if Lifelock is a scam? Find more info below.

Identity theft is perhaps one of the fastest growing crimes across the globe. In comparison to drug trafficking, identity theft can be more lucrative for identity thieves, as it not only pays well, but also carries less risks of being caught or prosecuted. Due to this, the number of cases related to identity theft has been steadily increasing over the years. No matter how much you try protecting your personal information, there’s always a risk of it getting leaked.

No identity theft protection is 100% foolproof. A clever identity thief can take pieces of information of different people and create a new identity. This wouldn’t be detected on any credit reports, as the information is too mixed up and polluted to be detected. This is termed as ‘Synthetic identity theft’.

Many people may opine that the services offered by Lifelock are not better than those provided by a host of other identity theft protection providers in the market. Many individuals are of the view that Lifelock is a scam, as the services that Lifelock provides are things that the everyday person can do themselves.

Though this may be true, Lifelock still provides you with professional service to ensure that your personal information remains personal. There are many other things in life that you can do yourself, but you pay an expert to do them. For instance, you can cut your own hair, but you visit a salon to get it cut. You can dispose of your garbage yourself, but you pay garbage men to do that for you. You can take measures to protect your identity yourself, but by hiring the services of a professional identity theft protection provider such as Lifelock, you can minimize your chances of suffering from identity thefts while taking the pressure off your own shoulders.

If your wallet is stolen? LifeLock’s WalletLock program will help you cancel and replace your cards. The company stands behind their services with a $1 million guarantee. If their system fails, and your identity is stolen, they will spend up to $1 million recovering your losses and investigating your case. Overall, LifeLock membership really is an effective way to keep identity thieves at bay.