How Do I Avoid Identity Theft

Archive for April, 2009

Ever wonder how identity theft occurs? It is actually quite fascinating, if it is not a very malicious and dangerous crime.

Identity theft occurs once a thief assumes another person’s identity by using confidential information supposed to be known exclusively by that person. The thief will commit fraud using the person’s name and important confidential information without the victim ever knowing about such transactions.

When the person or victim finally finds out about the crime committed, the thief is long gone in excruciating anonymity. They leave behind a ruined reputation, and a paper trail of ruined credit, debts and collectors.

Sometime the implications of identity theft usually cause the wrongful arrest of the victim. Why so? Because, without the identity theft angle in the case, it can be assumed that the victim was the one who committed the crimes because it was done under his/her name.

It is an alarming occurrence and usually, the victims would suffer the implications of the crime for years to come.

The past several years brought about an alarming wave of identity theft crimes in different areas dealing with personal information and economic transactions.

One of the hardest hit by identity theft crimes are the banks. Bank identity theft has been around long before there were credit card, social security, internet, job banks, airline and medical community identity thefts.

Bank identity theft occurrences vary. Some cases involve a thief continuously withdrawing huge amounts of cash from a bank account of another person until there is none left. Another case may involve the identity thief assuming the name and other personal information of another person then files for a bank loan.

Armed with personal information of another person, an identity thief can obtain a driver’s license. He/she can open new lines of credit and bank accounts even buy a car and get a mortgage. Bills and statements from these transactions are diverted to the thief’s temporary address.

They then bilk the victim’s credit line for all it is worth in cash advances, loans and credit card debt without intent to pay. All these occur with the thief hidden in a shroud of anonymity.

Bank identity theft and other forms of identity theft is a nightmare for millions of people who have become victims of such crime. Indeed, the figures of those victimized have reached into millions already. Sadly, though state and federal laws and stricter bank transactions have been imposed, the number of victims continues to rise each year.

When the walls come crashing in, you are left holding the bag and the thief is long gone. Financial recovery from identity theft can take years.

In United States and Canada, many people have reported unauthorized persons taking out funds form their bank or financial accounts. There are even worst cases when the victims report of an identity thief who has totally taken over their identities. With it, the thief have run up huge debts and committed crimes all under the name of the victim.

There was a notorious case of identity theft wherein the criminal, a convicted felon incurred more than $100,000 of credit card debt. Aside from this, the felon also obtained a federal home loan, bought homes, motorcycles, and handguns using the victim’s name.

With maniacal pride, he called his victim to taunt him. He declared that he could continue posing as the victim for as long as he wanted. During that time, identity theft was not yet a federal crime. Then, the thief filed for bankruptcy still using the victim’s name.

Very bitter was the fact that the criminal only served a brief sentence while the victim and his wife spent more than four years to restore their reputation and credit. They also spent more than $15,000 of their own money to win back their credit. The criminal did not even made restitution for all the danger he had caused.

The only positive thing that came out of this case and the others similar to this is when the Congress created a new federal offense against identity theft in 1998.

You can avoid being a victim of bank identity theft by identifying red flags that may indicate

Here are several red flags that indicate you may be a victim of identity theft:

1. There are bills for a credit card account you did not open.

2. There are notice charges, which you did not authorize on your credit card statement

3. No bills and credit card statements arrive on the days you expect them.

4. Unauthorized transfers or withdrawals on your bank statements show.

5. Notifications from collection agency about accounts you never opened.

6. Calls or notices from businesses about merchandise you did not buy.

7. Debts showing up on your credit reports that you did not file.

Identity theft is a very serious crime; if you’re a victim of this crime it may have serious consequences. It could mean difficulty in clearing your credit records, getting into debt, losing a lot of money and even getting in trouble with the law. You will also have difficulty obtaining new jobs or apartments. This is because employers and landlords usually check the credit records of their applicants.

This crime occurs when a thief gets information about your credit card numbers, name, address, social security number, and other personal information that should be kept confidential. After they obtained your personal information, they will usually make purchases, open bank accounts, apply for loans, apply for new credit cards, get government benefits, and forge checks in your name.

If you’re a victim, there are ways to solve this problem; you can report the crime to concerned authorities and you can apply for identity theft insurance. Many companies are offering insurance for people to protect their personal information. You can apply for this insurance as an option for homeowner’s insurance policy. However, having identity theft insurance does not prevent identity theft; it will only help you recover if in any case you have been a victim of this crime.

People who become victims of identity theft or identity fraud usually do not figure out how their personal information was acquired by the thief. So, it is wise that you should be careful about your personal information.

The best way to prevent this crime is to be careful with your personal information. You first have to know how criminals obtain your personal information.

Thieves obtain personal information in many simple ways. Here are some examples:

•  By stealing your wallet containing credit cards, and other personal information.

•  By going through your garbage for items containing personal
information.

•  By providing personal information online through email or
registration based websites.

•  By pretending to be a new creditor to obtain your credit report.

•  By eavesdropping on your phone calls or looking over your shoulder as you use your personal information.

•  By promising prizes or awards by contacting you by email that would require you to provide personal and financial information.

Here are some transactions that also create risk:

•  Online banking
•  Online purchases
•  Storing personal information in your computer
•  Using your social security information for identification purposes.

However, this does not necessarily mean that you should avoid these transactions. It means that you should be careful when giving away your personal and financial information.

Being conscious on how you use your personal and financial information can prevent completion of identity theft.

Here are some tips for safeguarding your personal and financial information:

•  Memorize your social security number

•  Memorize your PIN numbers

•  Don’t use easy to guess passwords, like your birthday or your mother’s maiden name

•  Secure your computer by using firewall software and always update your computer security to safeguard your computer from spywares.

•  Confirm if the website URL that is requesting your personal
information is authentic or legitimate.

•  Beware of emails, especially with attachments, belonging to someone you don’t know. Emails like these contain viruses or spywares that can easily be installed in your computer and can send your personal information stored in your computer to thieves.

•  Websites that ask for personal information should be secure. A secured website usually has URL that starts with “https://” with the “s” meaning secured.

•  Beware of telephone inquiries asking you to give your personal information, unless you contacted them.

•  If you lost your credit card, report it immediately to concerned authorities. It could have been stolen by identity thieves.
•  Get your mails as soon as it is delivered.

•  Do not discard bank, credit card or any other transaction receipts in public areas. Someone might obtain these information by dumpster diving.

These are some of the ways to safeguard your personal information. It is important that you should be aware of what you do to items containing your personal and financial information. Practicing these methods will surely minimize the risk of becoming a victim of identity theft.

Perforate or shred important documents containing personal informations such as old credit cards, used checks and identity cards.  You’ll never know when they would fall into wrong hands.

If you suspect that something is wrong, report it immediately to authorities. Be sure that you have a proof that you have reported such incident by keeping it in black and white.

Online, identity theft is quite common already. It seems that everybody is getting their businesses and transactions done online. That is why, online identity thieves are always on the lookout for their next victims.

How do online savvy protect themselves from the online identity thieves that are rampant nowadays?

1. Passwords.

Know that those little pop ups that is asking you if you would like to remember your user name and password is not helping you any. Most of these passwords are stored in system file and every half brained hackers know about this.
If you are not making use of firewalls, it is pretty easy for just about anyone to get hold of your password and use that anytime in your expense.

Be wary of these things. A prevention measure is to have a lengthy password complete with different kinds of characters.

As much as possible, do not input all your information in your computer or when something asks for it. The internet is definitely not a safe place to store your data and information.

2. Phishing.

What is phishing?

Phishing is one of the strategies being used to fool people into giving out their passwords and other personal information by pretending that they come from a genuine source.

Examples are emails sent by someone staring that you have won on some online raffle. And that you need to give out some information for verification. Out of hope or ignorance, you probably will end up giving them what they want.
This is what phishing is all about.  Phishing scammers are very much skilled in imitating other styles and language of communications. They use lists of millions of email addresses to send their notes out to, in the hope of getting even a small number of victim.

If you find it hard to distinguish which emails you are receiving are scams, try to verify the source of the message. Better yet, ask some sort of proof first to find out they are really legitimate or not.

3. Firewalls.

In the past, firewalls were a luxury. But now, they have become a necessity.

There are already an increasing number of Internet hackers that are making use of free programs that can compromise your system.

Take note that there are around 60,000 points of entry to your computer. So you may want to at least filter out some of the entries that can cause trouble.

4. A secure connection.

Before sending out any personal information, make sure that you make it a point to check out the browser address bar. Why is this?

Because you may want to be assured that you are sending them on a secure connection. A secure connection is an address that begins with http. If you do not see this in the address browser, then you can guarantee that that link is not secured. They can be breached easily. There goes your details.

5. Always confirm.

Before you click on that send button, think hard first. Are you willing to give out vital information away? Do you trust the receiver of this?

Today, every bit of information can be built into a solid profile. You can actually get a lot of information about someone just by knowing his or her birthday. This is the online world. Apparently, identity thieves also know about this.

The maniacal cruelty and audacity of identity theft criminals have now reached into the corporate world of business companies. In November 2005, the corporate identity theft crime wave reached the UK businesses.

According to brief reports last November, the corporate identity theft cost UK businesses up to £50M a year. Why? What is the modus operandi of these corporate identity thieves? Actually, it has been going on for years now.

Believe it or not, there are criminals posing as company directors on certain companies! Each year, as they see how gullible some people could be, there has been increasing number of them. They order goods that they never pay for and then sell those products for profits thus ripping off suppliers.

As a smokescreen to make them seem legitimate, they register through government agency handling company registrations, change company records and run up credit using company’s name.

Indeed, there are rouges that claim/pretend to be the manager or other illustrious title of a company and check that company’s credit rating. When he/she see that it’s good, he starts his game. By forging and filing forms at the government agency where companies are registered, he notifies the appointment of a fictitious new director. He then implies that there’s a new registered office address for the company.

Since the Registrar of Companies cannot check the validity of the documents, and is not obliged by law to check them, they proceed to register them. Afterwards, the thief orders high value goods and services on credit. He/she may use false IDs and then pretend to be a company director.

To countercheck, the supplier may search at Companies House. Since the accuracy of the thief’s claim has been established there already, the supplier will not see anything amiss. However, once the goods are delivered, the fictitious company directory disappears, without paying. The company he represented then suffers the set back.

As of now, according to reports many companies are suffering from this kind of corporate identity theft. It has become a present problem since even smaller companies are as vulnerable as large ones.

A company who has become victim of a corporate identity theft may even find out long after the rouge has taken off. Once they need a loan, they may be surprised of being denied credit and learn that they cannot obtain credit because they already have significant financial obligations. Until they can clear up that these are made by somebody else has accumulated these debts using the company’s name, their business may suffer terribly.

Beware, for this may happen in your company. You must know that it’s the medium sized and smaller businesses being targeted.

Security and trust are very important aspects in corporate ethics code. Corporate identity theft seems to have broken the barriers of these ethical bounds.

Whether your business is in UK or in any other part of the globe, avoid falling victim to corporate identity theft. There are simple precautions that you can make sure to make sure corporate identity theft does not taint your company’s good name.

Here are protective measures recommended for companies to prevent other people from pretending to be you.

First, make sure that the thief has not targeted your business. You need to frequently check with the government agency handling company registrations to see if your company’s registered office is accurate. You can do it online by finding out the website of the government agency mentioned.

You can also sign up proof service in order to pre-empt the thief. If your business is in UK, you can file online for PROOF service.

Filing for proof service means that certain changes in the information about your company should only be filed electronically. This must include the changes of company director’s name and your business address.

Once you file for proof service, filing through paper forms will be rejected. There are user name, password and authentication codes used in these electronic forms wherein your documents will be protected and no one else who does not know these codes can access them.

Do not let the tentacles of corporate identity theft get into your company. Stop pretensions of thieves and fight back. Aside from the preventive measures given, companies can find other means of preventing and eventually, stopping the insidious attacks of this crime.

Identity theft is considered as a huge problem in our society. Since everyday, there is an increase in the number of user of internet and most people consider computer as a big part of their lives, there is also an increase of cases of identity theft.

Individuals who are new in using the internet sometimes become to victim to computer identity theft systems. In most cases, the person involved in the identity theft systems uses your credit cards to buy supplies and merchandise for themselves.

While others will get an application for credit card, make bank account and destroy your good credit score.  In addition, making some correction about such subjects includes more time, effort and is stressful, so here are ten useful ways that you can use to avoid yourself from being an identity theft prey.

•  Make a disposable email address

Make sure that you have an email address that you can only use for businesses and other personal communication. If for instance, you want to buy something online, or you want to join a newsgroup, it is better than you use a disposable email address.

Yahoo and hotmail are some of the free accounts where you can make you own disposable email. Both of these are able to interface with other famous email clientele such as the outlook and the outlook express. You can use one of the two for your purchasing transactions.

•  Cover up your internet identity

If your name is Chris Brown try to not to use it in making your email accounts especially when having business with people you are not familiar with and deceitful-looking.

Perhaps if your birth date is April 3, 1980, do not make an account that contains both your name and birth date.

•  Use a unique password

You can use one password for your private data, and then use a different one for your dealing account and another one for your disposable email addresses you made. If possible, do not use passwords that appear in order like password3 for your private account, password4 for you business transactions and password4 for disposable email addresses.

•  Use “tough” passwords

Avoid using birthdates, anniversaries, or your children’s birthdates when making passwords. Do not use passwords that are purely letters or numbers.

In addition, to not to use passwords consist true words. Make passwords made of phases like “I drink 1 glass of milk everyday”. Get the first letter of every word in the phrase and it will result to “id1gome”.

•  Change your passwords

You must change you passwords at least every 6 months or if you want, you can have it changed every year. If you think your passwords have been exposed, change them for your protection.

•  It is important that you only use one credit card for every online transaction that you make

If you have more than three credit cards, stick to the one that you know will best work for online transactions. This is to monitor the transactions made with each of your credit cards. Therefore, if your other credit cards have an online transactions you are certain that those are fake.

•  Make use of a credit card rather than a debit card

Though many debit cards have online purchase safety steps, it is easier to fight fake charges than to refund debit card finances already used.

•  When you make online transactions ensure that it is safe

If you are making your first transaction on the internet, make sure that the company you are dealing with is someone familiar or referred to you by a trusted one.

•  Check for the company’s privacy guidelines

When doing the first purchasing online, ensure to check the privacy guidelines, search for logos from purchasers groups and try to find out if they are a member of the better business bureau. If possible, click the logos to confirm that they are genuine.

•  Do not open or sign up email inviting you to update your email account or credit card information through email.

These are only fraudulent. Some people do them attempt and secure your personal data. Most of them increasingly improve their modus operandi and go to great lengths to appear genuine like the company websites using their own logos.

Following the above guidelines, you are surely keeping yourself away from this computer identity theft.

Don,t Be A Victim