Identity theft incidents have been increasing yearly. With all of the hard times, more and more people are being lured into perpetrating identity theft. As a result good honest people spend months or years just trying to repair ruined credit reports.
A low credit rating may compromise your chances of getting a good job, a loan from the bank, insurance, apartment, or a condo.
If someone uses your identity to commit a crime, you could be arrested for crimes that you have not committed.
There are measures that you can take to protect yourself and make it more difficult for a thief to steal your identity.
It is critically important to protect your credit number when you make purchases. The receipt from the purchase or transaction should hide all but the last 4 digits of your credit card number.
If a receipt prints your entire account number and expiration date, you have the right to cross out the first 12 digits with a pen.
When going out to dine at restaurants, it’s important to make sure that the first 12 digits of your credit card number are hidden on the receipt. You may habitually sign then leave the restaurant their copy on the table. That is a good opportunity for a thief to steal that information. You could wait until the waitperson to come back around to pick up the check.
Avoid giving out your social security number if you can. Situations that require a social security number are applying for job, credit, bank account, and other loans. Some organizations may use it to track you within their system. This is a common practice even though the law frowns upon using social security numbers for this. If you feel uncomfortable about supplying a social security number, you could ask for an alternative.
Documents that contain sensitive personal information should be destroyed. A shredder is a worth investing in if you would like to destroy documents that you are throwing away.
Typically these documents could include credit card numbers, phone numbers, social security numbers and dates of birth. Thieves have no problem sifting through garbage for information like this.
If in the case you have become a victim of identity theft, the following steps should be taken immediately.
1.Contact you credit card companies, and deactivate accounts and have new cards issued.
2.Place a fraud alert on your credit file with one of the three major credit bureaus. The alert is transferred to the other two automatically.
3.File a police report so that there is documented proof that a crime has been committed.
4.File a complaint with the FTC, they keep records in the database about identity theft cases.