Almost half a million people are victims of this crime every year, and many of them spend time in a quarrel with creditors, banks, financial institutions, and the police in order to repair their good name. Others refer a lawsuit to the court.
Keep your letters safe
If your mailbox is not locked, you mail can be stoleneasily, giving the opportunity for a thief to know your account number and balance, credit card information, new cheque and so on. Think about all the personal information, including insurance policies and all kinds of mail charges, including medical information. Quotes from the credit card on behalf of your name can also become a significant risk if someone pick it up.
The post office box at the post office or the locked mailbox is a way to protect your documents. You also must pay attention to always use the mail box container from the post office for your sent mails - don't put the mails in outbox at your workplace if they are private.
If you do not receive an invoice with the usual time schedule, contact the company. For more guaranteed, consider paying bills via the Internet or online, which have advantage of reducing the receiving and sending mail. However there are some things that must be considered when you are sharing information online, and read carefully to protect yourself.
Protect your documents
Locked Storage file cabinet and the paper shredder is the property that is not useless nowadays. Drawer the workplace or a unprotected file cabinet of personal information could be accessed by irresponsible people, cleaning service, repairman, goods deliverer and the like including those who force to enter your home.
Store all important information, banks accounts and other financial information, check, voucher, letter of insurance, medical information, a debit card that you do not use, passport, old age savings card, birth certificate and the like in a locked safebox.
Do not dispose of the expired banks account, expired debit card, or other important information without destroying the document first. Trash bag lies in the roadside would invite identity theft.
Protect your credit card and debit card
If you carry your wallet in the handbag, you invite a thief anywhere you put it and be a target in store, restaurant or in the workplace. Many of us have much of a credit card than we need and bring everything in the wallet every day. It is wise to reduce the number of cards in the name of you and only carry credit cards or debit cards you need when you exit.
Some hotels reported that a thief entered the hotel room only to steal a card from the wallet, while another cards remain. That means the victim will take longer to realize that they were robbed, giving the thief more time to use stolen card.
If you fill out credit card applications, it should be consistent how you write your name and address-must match with other credit cards.
If you change address, please let all your creditors know much earlier the day when you will move, so there will be no banks account sent to the old address. Close all credit card is unused. Only a slice or cut is not enough. If one of your cards is expired and you do not accept the new one, contact the card issuer company immediately.
To avoid a dead loss of the stolen card, make copy ofaccount number and address information along with contact number of the owner of any company credit card, and store this information in a safe place at home. If credit card is lost or stolen, you already have the required number to contact the company to report the situation.
Do not wait up to one hour to report any lost card. Although the original card was found, your credit card can still be abused, so it is wise to carefully read every credit card bills and report any charges that you do not know.
Protect your PIN
Your PIN number is the largest gift to identity thieves, so it must be well protected, do not print or write PIN in a personal check, and never use for a password. Do not give a PIN number to anyone without a legal reason, and not to be used to identify you unless necessary. Do not take the same number of debit card, driver's license and ID card to be your PIN number.
Protect yourself online
Original anti-virus software (not pirated) is mandatory in every computer (even on Mac), and you must activate them and update periodically, scan for viruses automatically. Avoid sharing program, because the virus can be downloadedtogether with the material that we download.
But this time, even anti-virus protection does not guarantee stored information on your computer. You must also install and always update anti-spyware and firewall software, make sure they are installed for early warning. Also update your internet explorer browser with the latest version (which has been increasingly enhanced security). Many people like the delay to update their browser for fear the ropes will be changed, but it is important to remember that the latest version is usually increase the security.
Set Spam Blocker on "high" will protect your mailbox free from spam emails interference, also from dangerous attachment. You should never open attachments that you have never ask -even though from friend- without previously asking the sender, because some type of virus can take the address book and can transmit and send itself to everyone in the address book.
Your password must consist of a mixture of numbers, symbol, uppercase and lowercase letters. You may think that the name of grandfather-grandmother great-grandparent you will be hard in the broken-down, but the information-and more-personal information can be obtained from a record in government. It is your choice to create a unique password and remember, memorize it well.
When you shop online, see Trust-e symbol or Better Business Bureau online seal, which indicates that it has been in the independent audit and stated trustworthy. Avoid transaction on the Internet at the web site does not provide a privacy policy, you must know how is your information handled.
Finally do not make credit card bills via the Internet unless the site is handled through the secure mode or with a secret code. You will know if the page where you have a secure online form of the URL prefix https instead of http.
Aware to identity theft signs
If anything below happened, the case under suspicious and you should make you take action:
- Do not receive banks account normally.
- Accept credit cards you did not request, or charges from your account you didn't open.
- Find unknown charges from your account, or get phone calls or letters from debt collecting agencies.
- Declined to credit, without a shown cause.
- Find incorrect information or not according to your credit report.
As soon as possible to do this when you lose your credit card, debit card, pension number, SIM Card mobile phone, or the type of identifying information, do following ways:
- Block your credit card, debit card, and block your account at the bank. If the check is stolen, notify your bank.
- Report to police dan keep proof of reporting.
- Contact the state department of motor vehicles, if your driver's license was stolen.
- Contact SIM Card provider to notify them if your mobile phone stolen, and block number.
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