Here are some tips about Identity Theft - How To Prevent it

Tip#1 on Identity Theft - How To Prevent It : Educate Yourself. Start with this page from the Federal Trade Commission about how Identity Thieves work. Some of their most common techniques are…

Skilled identity thieves may use a variety of methods to get hold of your information, including:

1. Dumpster Diving. They rummage through trash looking for bills or other paper with your personal information on it.
2. Skimming. They steal credit/debit card numbers by using a special storage device when processing your card.
3. Phishing. They pretend to be financial institutions or companies and send spam or pop-up messages to get you to reveal your personal information.
4. Changing Your Address. They divert your billing statements to another location by completing a change of address form.
5. Old-Fashioned Stealing. They steal wallets and purses; mail, including bank and credit card statements; pre-approved credit offers; and new checks or tax information. They steal personnel records, or bribe employees who have access.
6. Pretexting. They use false pretenses to obtain your personal information from financial institutions, telephone companies, and other sources.

Tip#2 on Identity Theft - How To Prevent It: Shred documents before disposing of them, even at home.

Tip#3 on Identity Theft - How To Prevent It: Beware Email From “Financial Institutions” Many if not most these days are fraudulent. Delete them from banks or credit cards you’ve never done business with. Especially prone to abuse are emails from Ebay, PayPal and other online merchants. If an email comes and you believe it to be correct, log in directly at the merchant’s site from your web browser. Do not click links from within potentially fraudulent emails.

Tip#4 on Identity Theft - How To Prevent: Beware Online Job Offers… These offers either seek your personal information to steal your identity or to lure you into helping steal money from others by offering you a 10% commission for “check cashing”. In the end you’ll be the loser either way. You can read more here.

Tip#5 on Identity Theft - How To Prevent: Protect, Change, and Increase the Complexity of your passwords. Changing passwords every 30 to 90 days is best if the password has a mix of numbers and letters. Simple passwords like mother’s maiden name or easily guessed ones don’t work well.

Tip#6 on Identity Theft - How To Prevent: Protect Your Flash Drive. I just bought an encrypted flash drive. You should too! It’s too easy to peer into your life - and your customer’s lives - with an unprotected flash drive. Hey, keep your eye on your laptop too and make sure it’s well protected by encryption.

You can find other tips on Identity Theft - How To Prevent It at this University of Maryland page.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, September 22nd, 2007 at 3:27 pm and is filed under Identity Theft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.