How Do I Avoid Identity Theft

Archive for June, 2009

Identity theft can be one of our worst nightmares, since the stolen identity is always used for illegal purposes. Apart from having your identity stolen from you, you could also become a target of litigation from parties hurt by the actions of the identity thief.

So what should you do if you ever become a target of identity theft? This article provides information on what to do after you discover that your identity has been stolen.

What To Do After Identity Theft
Here are some steps to take once you discover your security has been compromised by an identity thief.

1) Let The Credit Rating Agencies Know
The credit rating agencies should be told about the theft as soon as possible. Creditors will need to contact you before they give loans to anyone approaching them for credit on your behalf. Try to get the fraud alert extended to seven years from the current 90 days. File all credit reports you receive, since it is crucial as evidence to show identity theft.

2) Keep An Eye On Credit Reports
Keep monitoring credit reports, so fraudulent accounts in your name are not opened. Keep reviewing your credit reports and look into the credit companies you have not had any dealings with.

3) Close Dubious Accounts
If you feel that some accounts have been opened by the identity thief, or there has been unauthorized access to the accounts, close them. Have the credit card companies and your bank notified by mail, so that you have a record stating that they were formally notified.

4) Opening New Accounts
Use new personal identification numbers and passwords if you wish to open new accounts. Ensure that the passwords are such that someone else cannot guess them.

5) Stopping Doubtful Transactions
If you feel that any transaction related to your account or credit card number is fraudulent, use fraud dispute forms available at the bank to state your claim. If you want the bank to consider your request, you need to prove that you have been a victim of identity theft. You can submit a copy of the police report or submit proof that your signatures have been forged.

6) Report To The Police
Report the identity fraud to the police as soon as possible. Get an affidavit from the police station to prove the crime, since banks and credit card companies will ask for the affidavit to be submitted before they take action to close accounts that have been compromised.

The above steps will help you close fraudulent accounts opened in your name and keep further fraud from being committed in your name. Report the identity fraud as soon as you discover it to the proper authorities.

Identity theft is a menace to modern society and something that can happen to anyone at any time. What makes identity theft harder to tackle is the fact that victims rarely find out about it till it’s too late. In the U.S., most victims realize that their identity has been stolen almost 12 months after the crime. The longer the thief has access to your identity, the harder it will become for you to clear the resulting mess.

If you think there is nothing you can do except hope the next identity theft victim is not you, you cannot be more wrong. Being alert can help you catch identity theft as early as possible, and the damage might be contained.

The Warning Signals

Here are some signs to watch out for with regard to identity theft.

1) You don’t receive credit card statements regularly.
One of the ways identity theft is made easy is unlocked mailboxes. The identity thief can simply take out the credit card statements from your mailbox and walk away. If you think your mail is being tampered with, that is one of the signs of identity theft.

2) You receive statements regarding an account you did not open.
If you receive calls regarding an account you did not open, or your credit card company calls you regarding a credit card you never applied for, this may be another warning signal for identity theft.

3) Debt collectors contact you about unknown loans.
Debt collection agencies contact you to ask you to clear debts you knew you never had.

4) Inflated credit card bills
If your credit card bills seem inflated and you don’t remember purchasing the items billed to you, you should consider the possibility of identity theft.

5) Missing Checks
If your checkbook has missing checks, this could be another warning sign of identity theft.

6) Discrepancy in Credit Reports
Your credit reports show loans you never took and accounts you did not open. Monitoring credit reports regularly can help you detect identity theft early.

7) You are contacted by police over illegal activities you were not involved in.

The identity thief can use your name when arrested by the police or has any kind of trouble with law enforcement agencies. This should alert you to the possibility of identity theft.

How To Confirm Identity Theft

The warning signs mentioned above could spell trouble; on the other hand, they may indicate a commonplace problem in your mailing address, or the credit card billing system that can be sorted out in a phone call.

How do you make sure that you are a victim of identity theft? The best way to do it is by tracking your credit record. Every U.S. state has provisions for making your credit record available to you for free, you just need to apply to the proper authorities.

Never ignore the warning signs above, even if they seem too small to be of any importance. Becoming aware that you are a victim of identity theft is the first step towards resolving the problem.

You should be very careful what information you give on the telephone or in reply to an email or mail survey. These methods of communication are not secure, and are very rarely if ever used officially by governments, banks or companies to obtain personal identity information. Any approach by these means should raise a “Scam!” warning in your mind.

Identity thieves using this “spoofing” method pretend to be an official authority, bank or company in order to build up your trust, and may go to considerable lengths to reproduce company logos, correspondence and websites so that they appear to be the real and official organization.

So-called “phishing” campaigns use official looking emails to request your confidential details, and have become more common and more credible looking in recent years.

For trusting people encountering them for the first time, these emails can be difficult to deal with, because they usually imply threats of account closure or similar consequences if no action is taken. They have become a routine part of using email for most of us “old hands”, and it is too easy to overlook how credible they may seem to a person new to using emails and who have had few exposures to identity thieves in the “offline” world.

Identity thieves do target the more trusting and innocent of us, and perhaps those of us who are more naïve or gullible. For a long time business has been built on trust and honest face-to-face dealings, but the internet particularly has opened up opportunities for identity thieves to reach out to us anonymously across international borders. People new to the internet have to learn to manage these risks.

Fortunately, many of the spoofing operations are carried out from non-English speaking countries, and this often shows through sufficiently strongly in the spelling and grammar of their correspondence to sound alarm bells for most of us.

You can also lose your credit card details by unintentionally giving away your personal details to an identity thief. Make sure you have confidence in vendors you deal with over the telephone or internet. Is the transaction through a reputable company, and does it use a secure transaction page? Merchants accepting credit cards have their reputation to take care of as well if they are to continue to deal with the credit card issuing companies, so they have strong incentives take a lot of care over providing a secure and honest service. By far the majority can be trusted. The risk is greatest if you are not dealing with a genuine merchant but with an identity thief pretending to be a merchant.

We all know how important it is to protect our credit card information. Misuse of credit cards is the probably the biggest identity theft risk exposure for most of us.

Everyday use of your credit card was once a big risk. It used to be easy for criminals to get your card’s number, your name and the card’s expiry date from the carbon slips in restaurant and retail waste bins. Now it’s getting harder for them to obtain all the details they need to use your credit card. Today most credit card transactions are electronic, and usually the retailer’s copy of the receipt only shows an unusable part of your card’s number. Retailers now track back with the banks, if necessary, using a separate transaction code, not your card’s number. If your card does not leave your sight – and it is still wise to be very careful about that – there is now little risk your details can be stolen in everyday use.

The extra little printed security code number on the back is now often used for internet, mail order or telephone transactions using your card. You need the card in your hand, not just a carbon copy slip, to know that number. Protecting that number is another good reason for never letting your credit card out of your sight.

You should make sure you sign your new credit card as soon as you receive it. Copying your signature is possible, but retailers risk losing money if they do not confirm at least a reasonable similarity between the user’s signature and the signature on the card. Some credit cards companies offer the option of having your photograph appear on your credit card. This makes using your card very difficult for a thief, much more so than fraudulently copying your signature sufficiently well to get past the checkout clerk.

It is easy to overlook the importance of keeping your credit card under your control, and in a secure place at all times. A category of identity fraud is the “NOOP” fraud, where the card is Not Out Of your Possession. You may not even be aware of the fraud. In this case the identity thief “borrows” your card to use it, then returns it. This type of fraud is sometimes carried out by a family member, or by a work colleague.

Finally, watch what information you put out in your rubbish or trash bin. You should shred your old expired credit cards, your credit card slips and your credit card statements before you toss them out with the trash. This policy should also apply to any other identity documentation you dispose of, and making this a routine practice is a sound defence against identity theft.

Businesses are especially exposed to physical and data access code identity theft.

In a busy workplace, where a lot of people work, it can be difficult to keep property and information secure if an unauthorized thief gains access. The problem of “stair dancers”, thieves who move quickly around the building using the stairs instead of the lifts and steal in an opportunist way, is an example.

The answer for most companies is to control entry to the building, with a single supervised entry point or an automated controlled entry system. Either way, some form of personal identification is usually required, such as a personal identification pass or swipe card. High security facilities may use more complex solutions. To gain entry, a thief must steal or copy an identity pass or card.

To guard against theft of a pass or swipe card, adding a PIN code to be entered when the card is swiped is a common solution. If a card is lost the magnetic entry code and the PIN number are easily changed. With a supervised entry, the security person or receptionist usually gets to know people, or you can use a stronger requirement for pass inspection with photographic identity or a signing-in procedure for where there is doubt.

Data security is most effectively managed by starting with the “need to know” principle: only those who need the information can get access. A user name and password as each person’s means of identification is the most common solution. Strong passwords should be required for important data, following good practice for setting up passwords such as only complex character combinations and a minimum length.

By limiting the number of password entry attempts (often to 5) before a time delay before another attempt (often 15 minutes) an automated log in system would take a very long time to test the possible combinations of a strong password. This activity would no doubt be detected by most systems, and access further denied from that computer. A further security measure is to restrict access to a defined network or to specified internet addresses or computers.

Programmed restrictions to certain individuals should be placed on the ability to change (or, worse, to corrupt) a database, and to download or print sensitive commercial or personal information. Data held on portable or laptop computers is more difficult to control and more susceptible to theft, and these computers are at greater risk of being interfered with for a thief to load spyware.

Systems to detect and remove spyware, especially key stroke logging software, from entering a commercial computer network is vital to guard against identity theft.