Tips on Avoiding Yourself from Identity theft

What exactly is identity theft and why it is affecting so many people’s life? The news of the people being victimized by this identity theft is increasing every day. It is not only the identity; people’s lives are getting changed with this dangerous crime. If one wants to avoid this theft and stay away, one must understand it in depth.

Identity theft is basically defined as the theft where person’s money and reputation is on stake. A thief steals person’s secured information and misuses it to get access to money and property. Although personal information is held with care yet there are million of loopholes from where this information can be leaked.

In identity theft, your identity can be stolen by just your credit card and your signature on it. Once your identity is stolen a person can pretend to be the owner of that identity and get hand on the money. Credit card is not the only gate for these thieves. They can be the hackers and hack your information from internet.

Money is not the only target of these criminals. They can do many crimes using your identity and in the end you will be the one paying the consequences. These criminals can steal your credit card records and call your card issuer to change the billing address. Once it is done, they can then charge purchases on your account without you knowing it.

If a person changes the billing address, you will be facing massive damage because you will find out late about the theft. In this situation that fraud might open another account using your identity and he has to pay no bills. You will realize this as a problem when the delinquent accounts turn up on your credit report.

The worst situation comes when the fraud opens a new account with your name and gets a new identification card with your name but his picture. He may take huge loans and bad checks under your name. After his game is over, he will be running away from police bravely showing your name and you will be the one facing police.

Police may arrest you when the criminal does not appear in court. A warrant will be issued in his name, which is in actual your name. Now you might be feeling the bad face of getting your identity stolen.

If you want to keep yourself protected from such criminals, you need to be extra vigilant with your information. Consider it like diamonds in your hand and keep them under key and lock. Do not ever speak your personal information aloud in crowd. When you are in stores doing some shopping. Never hand over your credit cards to the shop keeper.

Try to minimize your risk, limit your use of ATM cards. Never carry your check books along with you. For your credit accounts, you can report it to the different fraud agencies who can issue a fraud alert on your account. This alert would notify creditors to contact you every time a new account is being made under your name. You can also have your affected credit accounts closed to stop further infringement. Report also your problem to the police as well as the FTC in order to make the necessary legal arrangements and cases in the event that the perpetrators are apprehended.

How to avoid being a victim of Identity Theft

Mari Frank, 1996 is one of the victims of identity theft. She lost her identity to an internet hacker who stole her credit report on web and misused it. Mari was unaware of the fact and she came to know that after 10 months when she had a huge debt on her shoulders. That is not all, that fraud also got access to her business cards and misused them as well. The identity theft news was no doubt shocking to her. She decided to fight till she gets revenge and punish the person who did that sinful crime.

This is of course hard to get revenge from a fraud that is living in the world of cyber as these are the master of Information technology. Well as it is said: “Prevention is better than cure”. Though it is not easy to keep yourself away from these thieves yet strict precautionary measures can reduce the risk of being victim.

There exist some guides which gives you steps to prevent identity theft. These guides will definitely carry steps like carefully dispose off your personal documents when they are of no use and take extra care of your social security number. But again there is little what an individual can do to prevent identity theft.

The basic prevention must be on some other fields. One is the credit industry and the other is information handling employers of any company. The credit industry needs to be more effective while their application-screening process. Similarly the information handling employers of any good company should be more responsible while holding precious documents and valuable information.

According to the experts in identity theft, this has been observed that mostly the personal information of any employee is leaked out by the same company employees. This is done by the pressure of position or by certain links and references. These employees even sell personal information of their colleagues to identity thieves in exchange of certain amount.

Phishing is another type of fraud which is designed to steal person’s identity. In Phishing, scam artists ask the web user to put in his/her personal information like security number or bank details in order to move forward in any website. It is always recommended to stay away from such links as they are meant to be tarps.

One of the ways to avoid identity theft is to keep your personal information under key and lock no matter if it is an office, your home, a private or a personal organization. Main targets of these identity thieves are Social Security Number, driver’s license number, financial account number, date of births and pass code.

Thieves have their own ways. Some steal your wallet. Some get hands on your official mail box. Some check your trash boxes. Some use change-of-address cards from the Post Office to have your mail forwarded to another address typically a vacant building. Data can be collected from bank databases and other public records.

Use paper shredder before you throw your important documents like bank statement or ATM receipts into trash box. This will leave nothing for the thief at least in your trash box.

When you provide information to businesses or stores like hotels or rental car Companies, ask them if they shred hard copies of your information before disposing them off. If they don't, you should request to have all of your paperwork returned to you so you can discard it properly. By not shredding your information, these companies are not doing their part to prevent identity theft. These childish sounding guidelines will really save your soul from getting into trouble.

Identity Number Theft prevention

Identity number theft is increasing at a higher rate after every coming day. These number thefts include the theft of credit card number, veteran number and social security number. The news of identity number theft is heard commonly on the television, newspaper and especially on web. The theft of this number brings along the damage of huge amount of money and credit.

The biggest tragedy of identity number theft is that anyone who owns a credit card or who possesses security number can be a victim of this theft unwillingly. No matter if you are an individual shopping for your family or a businessman doing some business financial transactions, you can be attacked by these frauds. These scams are out there waiting for you to do a single mistake.

With the advent of Internet shopping and online marketing, this theft has been increased more. On web people can pretend to be someone else so one needs to be extra vigilant while doing financial transactions online.

With this increasing risk, the question arises: what we must do to protect ourselves from these thieves? Awareness is the pre-requisite. Get yourself educated with all the procedures to save your security numbers from being stolen. There are some steps which might help you in this regard:

• You must be wise enough not to speak out your personal information in front of strangers. Remember these things are not to be told aloud. If you are that foolish to do this, you will have to suffer the worst consequences.
• Keep your check books safe in a lock at home or in office. Do not carry the whole check book with you in your wallet. You can keep one or two blank checks if it is so necessary. Stolen check books or check register can cause you much trouble in the end.
• If you are in a public place, be very tactful about the financial events happening in your life. These events include capital investments, big ticket purchase, stocks or property acquisition. Talking about financial events in public can lead to unwanted interest on your finances.
• You might be more than one credit card holder but you must not carry all of these with you. If you lost your wallet, you will loose all what you have. So keep only one credit card with you to minimize the risk.
• Social Security Number is your identity proof so try to memorize it. Never keep the Social Security Card with you as this is the easiest way for thief to take away your identity.
• Avoid using one credit card for high bills. This will drag attention to your finances. Use two cards if you have high bills.
• Try to use Automated Teller machines (ATM) as less as possible. When you use the ATM be sure that the person behind you does not see the transaction you are making. ATM is another hot place for identity number thieves.

Dealing with Inevitable Website Scams

Computers and web has caused an extreme change in the world of business. The speed of any on-going or new business is directly proportional to the use of websites and computers. It directly affects the quality, response and results of any corporate as well as the commercial world.

Nowadays the trend of e-commerce to buy and sell the business products is increasing everywhere. It has been evident that as many online services a business adapt for the marketing of its products, the growth of business increase two-fold. This also brings along the thieves to attack any susceptible e-biz corporate.

The use of pseudonyms or the fictitious name on internet is the biggest cause of spam messages in any website. This is the best way which is mostly chosen by hackers, Spoofers and Phishers to deceive others and do spam messages in these websites. These hackers and Spoofers were not the bad people. They are Technology professionals and web developers but due to some reasons, they could not develop in their fields. So they are taking their failure revenge in the form of spamming and hacking. Damage others economy and assets is their success now.

There exist two type of hacking in the cyber world: hacking done by an individual and hacking done by a group in one single website name. In United States of America, there is a survey team which is responsible to take notice of spamming and illegal internet activities with the help of Federal Trade Commission. These Survey team has reported an increase of 34 % in the internet fraud since year 2004. Households’ online spookers’ complaints rate 3%, in the U.S., which means, nobody get away from these online nuisance leading to crime of fraud.

Phishing occurs when a scam message appears while you are trying to enter into any web address. This message will ask your private credit card information or your bank related information in order to let you enter that website. Be aware and think thrice before giving your personal secure information. This might be a fraud and you will be entering your most precious information into their web portal.

Situation may worsen if once your information is leaked. If crime has deepened, against the stolen credentials, the fraud could turn you over to authorities and can force you into a deplorable situation on a very long-termed rescue to financial recovery. On web it is harder to catch and identify the real culprit because there are millions of web users working with their fake identity. The hacker might pretend to be the part of that website you are active on that time but he could actually belong to any other website.

You can save your self from this bad situation by asking about the landline which is lawful. You should never cut and paste any link from the message into your internet browser. Mostly extending links are irregular and they may shift to website with highly extensive porn settings.

The need of the hour is to keep remember that web is the place of all good and all bad. You can never identify the authenticity of any web link in cyber world. Just remember that every body in this cyber world can pretend to be someone else so better not trust blindly because there is no use to cry after the damage is done

But if you own a website, this is your responsibility to do every effort to keep these spammers away. This will not only save your soul but also people visiting your web address. Apply strict passwords and protect your website with anti virus, spyware and firewalls. These will save your computers from any unauthentic intruder and will save your personal information from being stolen and misuse.

Can You Stop Credit Card Identity Theft?

Nowadays credit card security has been the biggest issue. No doubt the use of credit card has been increasing with every rising day but this brings along security threats as well. It has been a common trouble that these thieves get hands on your security number and they can misuse this for their own purposes. Such kind of threat is known as Identity theft where a person’s personal identity is on stake.

If you are a credit card user, you can be an unwilling victim of this theft. There exist many ways of Credit card identity theft. Due to this transaction and financial contracts being handled through computer or internet, people’s personal information is somewhat safe now. This online way of money transaction has made credit card identity theft much defenseless.

In credit card identity theft, a thief claims to be the owner of the card and does purchases from this money. If you do not keep your information safe, your money can also be used by anyone else without your notice.

Credit card theft is possible in many different ways. If you use your credit card often you must be the most probable victim of credit card identity theft. People who use their credit card more commonly have the highest risk to leak their personal information. You might not hand over your credit card to the shop keeper, instead use it yourself. The signature on your credit card might be stolen and copied for any misuse.

Your private information should be on your own uphold because a lot of crimes can be committed using your own records. It can be as easy as calling your own credit card issuer to change your billing address once they get crack of your credit card information. The fraud can then run charges on your account without you even knowing it because your bills are being sent to a different address.

Your credit card information can be further misused to create a new account on your name. You must be very careful while using your credit card as this information can be leaked and misused without you being aware of that. That fraud might use your credit card in some illegal activities and the bill of all these activities will be included in your report card.

This will be much difficult for you to use your credit card in any nice and quality place if the record of your credit report is not clean. You might be unaware of these fraud activities with your credit card and you may end in an investigation by police. He or she might be doing the wrong deeds with your credit card but you will be the one facing court and law in the end if you stay unaware. So be extra vigilant while using your credit card.

Breaking the Misnomers of Social Security

Social Security number is a series of number which is considered mandatory for the identity of any individual. The basic concept behind the social security number was the protection of an individual. A person is precisely identified by this series of number. But in last few years, this social security number has been the cause of the individual’s security threat.

Identity theft has been the main cause of troubles for many individuals in America and other countries. Although the same string of numbers is used for the security purpose, yet the same number is being misused to threat the security. This increases the need to give away you security number very attentively.

You can take many preventive measures to make sure your security number is secured. Keep your private documents under key and lock and if there is any intention to dispose them, tear them off properly to make sure no one gets your security number in trash box. Dispose off may take some time but will save you from getting into a whirlpool of troubles and hurricane of hurdles.

Try not to carry this secret number along with you. Keep it safe in your heart instead of writing on a paper and putting in your wallet. Remember it is most probable to loose your wallet along with this secret information. This sound simple but if you do not take care of this simple fact, it may lead you to many complications.

It is good that you remember your social security number but it never means that you can speak it out in front of anyone to prove your memory. Most of the time, only government agencies have the right to ask your social security number so better verify the authentication of any private company employ if he or she is asking you for your security number. That person might be a fraud who could impersonate to be a government agent. Do not be a fool to hand over your security number in front of any random employee.

Double check the authenticity of any employee who is asking for your social security number. There exist some private agencies which may ask you your security number but it is all your choice if to give away or to keep it with you. All they can do is to stop their services.

The best precautionary measure against identity theft is extra vigilance and awareness. You must be well aware of your rights. You must know all dos and don’ts before giving away your social security number. Read all the identity theft rules and regulations so that in case you need them you must know how to take advantage of this law.

To learn and understand more about identity theft through social security numbers, browse www.ssa.gov Here you will find a rich resource on anything and everything to do with identity theft and there are special links and articles specifically on identity theft through social security numbers.

Identity Theft Law

Practicing law and order to defend freedom of citizens is the most practical approach in any educated country. This is indeed the best way to condemn crime and criminals. Every one is aware of the universal definition of right and wrong in terms of freedom. It is widely known fact that freedom is when a person claims his identity as his own with all the magnificence but then all of a sudden he shockingly found out someone else using his identity.

Identity theft law serves the citizens looking for justice in this manner. Almost every national state is following these laws to give justice to their populace. According to “Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act of 1998,” the definition of illegal use of any person’s identity was well defined. According to this law, a person is bound to prove his/her identity by social security number or name.

So many protective measures were done to eradicate the interruption of criminals in the private lives of citizens. Even then criminals disrupt through private information in the course of government and private listings. It was hard to stop these criminals getting hands on the private information of the citizens through all legal and illegal ways. Free projects in U.S enhanced this problem even more where money is being traded in many different ways.

Banks and credit cards are the foundation of private information where immense amount of money is saved for easy transfer. If a person is unaware of the identity theft law, the probability of theft and information damage is very high. Be aware that identity theft law covers all these legal activities starting from emails to transaction cards to insurance, brokerage, mails and to any other documentation which require membership.

Identity theft law is powerful enough to punish criminals an imprisonment of around 15 -30 years depending on the damage done. It does not include revoke human rights and penalty of property. Every federal state has its own law to practice on any kind of identity theft case. Every time the thief is observed by the federal agency to practice law.

Identity theft law is no doubt effective but it is always better to not face such situation where you are a helpless victim waiting for the court to announce in your favor. Try to stay away from this situation by some preventive measures because peace of mind is the most expensive possession.

It is a common saying “Prevention is better than cure.” Even if the identity theft law can recover your property but it can not recover your time and your peace. Follow some basic prevention steps to keep yourself safe.

1) Passwords are meant to be the secret codes – choose them wisely and use them attentively.

2) Have a close monitor on your transactions – this can be done by demanding your yearly credit reports.

3) House theft – keep your house safe from strangers and if you have guests at your home, keep your private information under key and lock.

4) Only disclose your private information to trust-worthy people but also keep an eye on them to check how they dispose your private information.

No matter how much preventions you measure there is still some risk to your private information being leaked. So you need to be extra vigilant in order to keep your identity safe. Criminals get advantage of the inefficiency of law enforcement so you have to be careful at every step so that your process of success never ends.