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.
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