The Federal Trade Commission (Consumer Protection Division) is the agency that keeps track of identity theft and its victims. Identity theft is a big business and growing at a wild pace. There are many people right now who do not know that their identity has been stolen. So, here are some tips to recover from identity theft.
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But there are so many companies out therewho is more reputable? Who has the most benefits? Here is a quick breakdown of some of the best identity protection services.
Lifelock
You probably have seen the commercialthe CEO of Lifelock shows his actual social security number for the world to see. Why would someone do this? Its because he has just that much faith in his service.
Lifelock will help protect your name and reputation. This is one of the more well-known identity protection services that not only watches for new opened accounts, but can help monitor your credit, debit and social security numbers for suspicious activity.
Lifelock is so certain that they will protect your good name, they offer identity theft insurance of one million dollars, guaranteed by XL Capital. So if the service fails at protecting you, their insurance will cover you as backup. For about $100 a year, its a small price to pay for continual protection.
LoudSiren
If youre looking at protecting your credit report from new, unauthorized activity, LoudSiren may be the company for you. LoudSiren does not monitor your current credit, but keeps an eye out for suspicious activity that occurs after utilizing their services. Even so, they still offer free annual credit reports for you to peruse your past credit history.
What makes them unique is their special LoudSiren Safe Phone Number. This is a special number given to you and placed on your credit report, and this is the number creditors will use to contact you for verification. This number forwards over to your home or cell, and notifies you of the new activity. You can either accept or deny the activity, and even immediately send the fraudulent activity over to the local authorities to open a police report.
In addition, they offer a $25,000 insurance on their services, backed by AIG.
This service runs less than $10 a month.
Trusted ID
Trusted ID is very similar to LifeLock, with a fraud alert doing the upfront protection, although Lifelock does offer additional services such as ID replacement and Address Verification. Both monitor the internet and black market for your personal data, as well as your credit card activity. In addition, you can have your child registered for protection as wellyes, children can be victims too! They, too, have a million dollar insurance backed by AIG.
Identity Guard
If monitoring your current credit is high on your priority list, Identity Guard may be the service for you. Unlike the other services, Identity Guard does not place a fraud alert on your account, but they do watch your current credit scores and reports. They also have some of the most effective internet scanning programs. This service runs a little more than the others at about $15 a month, but offers the best in credit monitoring.
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Identity theft is the fastest growing business in our world today. Someone’s identity is stolen every 2 seconds. People who steal your identity as a profession are thought to be growing at an alarming rate. But the fact is, there are no real estimations of how many people are working to destroy your life. This article is meant as a guide to protect you from identity theft by giving you some current tips to for self-protection.
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Preventing identity theft is not easy but defending the most common forms of identity theft is well worth it. The most common methods of stealing ones identity are card swiping, mail stealing, trash digging, picking of wallets and spy ware (retrieval of personal information). Knowing how to prevent identity theft can mean the difference between losing your hard earned fortune and saving it. Here are some of the ways you can fortify your privacy:
Failing to follow these steps of prevention puts you at high risk for being framed for criminal activity, being blackmailed and being charged for expensive items. In the United States alone over nine million individuals are victims of identity theft every year. If you fall victim to identity theft do the following immediately:
We all have the ability to avoid identity theft. Like anything else worthwhile, it does take some effort.
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Being a consumer himself, Al James has a passion for writing about issues regarding consumer protection. The worldwide web has become massive in size and is available to virtually anyone. It’s important now more than ever to protect yourself from online identity theft. There are numerous Ways to Prevent Identity Theft if your willing to put forth the effort. It is well worth it. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Albert_W_James |
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Every 2 seconds someone’s identity is stolen. It’s hard to keep up with the scams destroying our lives and reputations because we don’t know about them for months, even years. Many scams are so high-tech we can’t even begin to fathom how they work. From someone who’s been there, I wanted to give you the benefit of my experience. The following are 8 tips to prevent identity theft.
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It seems like everyday we hear about a new scam on the news. It can be as simple as someone selling you a product that does not work at promised, to the devastating crime of someone scamming you for all of you money. As humans we want to trust that people are not going to attempt to scam us, but the reality is that many people will do terrible things for a cheap buck.
It would be great if there was overall scam insurance that protected us from every possible scam, but that does not yet exist. However, there is insurance for the fastest growing type scam out there: Identity theft.
Since the advent of the internet identity theft has been on the rise. We are now highly dependent on electronic transactions, and this makes us vulnerable to identity theft and credit fraud. While identity insurance isn’t going to be insurance for every scam out there, it will protect you from the most devastating scams that are being run today.
Every four seconds someone in the USA becomes a victim of identity theft. The scam works like this:
Anyone can become the victim of an identity theft scam at anytime. The criminals will even scam children because they, and their parents, never think about checking their credit reports. Identity scams are the fasting growing and most devastating scams out there today.
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“Dumpster diving,” or rifling through trash cans for personal information, is a common tactic used by ID thieves.
You are definitely placing yourself at risk if you don’t shred sensitive documentation.
Assuming you place your trash at the curb, or in a public dumpster, the U.S. Supreme Court has indicated that someone can legally dig through your trash. In the decision California vs. Greenwood, they stated that the “expectation of privacy in trash left for collection in an area accessible to the public… is unreasonable.” This implies that someone could legally dig through your trash looking for credit card receipts, bank account numbers, or your Social Security number.
This great risk can be easily controlled by using a paper shredder to destroy all documents and files before discarding them. By shredding all documentation, containing sensitive, personal information, you are taking one of the most important steps towards protecting your identity, and safeguarding your family’s future.
Invest in a shredder for your home or office, ideally one that “cross cuts” (slices in two directions). If your shredder can’t handle plastic, use scissors to cut up expired credit cards and identification before discarding them. For larger disposal jobs, consider hiring a shredding company.
You should shred anything that has a signature, account number, Social Security number, medical or legal information. In short, destroy all sensitive information including junk mail such as pre-approved credit offers. By simply shredding any personal information before discarding you can greatly reduce your risks of becoming one of the millions of victims of identity theft each year.
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Jason Shafer is an ID Theft Specialist with SOLUS Identity Theft Protection. Your identity is your most valuable asset. To learn more about identity theft and identity theft protection please visit http://www.solusid.com Read more by visiting our blog at http://www.oneidproblog.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jason_Shafer |
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Identity theft is quite common with others using our name, social security number, credit card number, and other personal information to withdraw savings, take loans, and commit fraud and other kinds of crime. Yet, what is child identity theft? That is something different and quite recent. What exactly is child identity theft and how serious is it? What are the measures parents need to take to protect their child and to prevent child identity theft from happening to their child and loved ones?
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Identity theft even applies to the dead. Write your obituaries with identity theft in mind because the deceased’s identity is an irresistible target for thieves. There are tips that you can follow to avoid identity theft.
Victims of identity theft
Identity theft of the dead is a deplorable topic to have to discuss, but it must be talked about to help those who may be victims of identity theft in the future. The problem is compounded by the fact that the family is grieving for the dead and being conned at the same time. It is made even worse when the deceased had joint accounts with a partner who is still living because she or he ends up having to pay dearly for the thief’s crimes. The saddest part is that the thief often gets away with the crime before he or she is caught.
Identity theft from obituaries
Con artists will scan the obituaries in their city or town and watch for valuable information that they can use to access bank accounts and personal credit. Long obituaries that give many details give these scam artists more valuable information that they can use to steal the identity of the deceased. The deceased doesn’t have to worry about their credit rating, but the family is caused undue emotional stress. Sometimes the thieves want to steal the identity to avoid immigration, legal or financial problems of their own.
How you can avoid identity theft
The best way to avoid identity theft from your loved ones obituary is to take care of financial and credit issues before the obituary is published. Close accounts, and notify all creditors, banks and credit reporting agencies of the deceased’s passing. The next best thing is to limit the information on the obituary so that there isn’t a resume of details that list every occupation, award and detail of the person’s life.
A checklist of what to do to avoid identity theft from obituaries
If you do all of these things you will ensure that your loved one will not be a victim of identity theft after he or she has passed away. It is even better if you do all of this before you publish the obituary:
What to do if you suspect identity theft
If you’ve already published the obituary and you notice unusual activity on the deceased’s accounts, you can assume there is some sort of identity theft and so you must do the following:
The police and credit reporting agencies will have more suggestions for you to keep you safe.
Writing obituaries need not be a daunting task, especially if you have all your financial affairs in order. If you’ve taken all the steps to avoid identity theft from obituaries, you can rest assured that your obituary can be as long or as short as you would like it to be.
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Every year hundreds of thousands Identities in the United States are stolen and used for fraudulent activity. Identity Theft can happen to everyone and if you would ask around with friends and family chances are that someone has been hit by ID theft one way or the other. Your identity can be stolen by anyone. Sometimes it is a family member with easy access to your personal data, in other cases your personal data is stolen from a government database or when someone “loses” your data (stolen laptop, security breach, data interception, etc.). Sometimes you get notified that your data was stolen, sometimes you don’t learn about your identity being stolen until it is too late.
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