How Do I Avoid Identity Theft

Archive for the ‘Spoofing’ Category

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.

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.