Simple Measures to Reduce Risk of Identity Theft

Mrs. Bradshaw was a happy woman with decent card bills that had figures in moderation, and which she used to pay dot at the right time, with no defaulting  till the time she began receiving bills with three to four times the amount every month, which caused her to contact the credit card company and demanded to review the statements. Someone had been ordering expensive things from the online shopping sites in her name. while later it was discovered that it was Mrs. Bradshaw’s daughter who had been bestowing such ugly surprises on her, the fact is, this is the simplest example of identity theft.

Person A using the identity of person B to get his / her work done (however unjustified) is a classic example of identity theft. Simple people living very normal lives have no time to give these extra troubles a thought. They may already be too bugged about children, job, home chores, affairs etc to be worried about geniuses trying to get into the bare minimum funds that they may have saved to carry them through holocaust. But, as times are changing and every bit of information can be used for some benefit or, the other, strangers are operating every where and through every means to get to even that bare minimum that one can provide. To avoid being a victim of identity theft a person is expected to employ simple measures to protect against identity theft and fraud.

To begin with, while traveling (especially in public conveyance) one should preferably carry not more than one credit card and that too with very low credit limit. The rest should safely be locked at home. This way, even if the card gets stolen, the identity thief will not be able to do much damage, some thing that you may not be able to recover without breaking your bank. Similarly, it is always better to leave social security card home, while the number is safely memorized. This way, the risk of loosing social identity to some undeserving thug will be minimized. People are also very irresponsible while disposing bills or, statements that carry vital information. Instead of disposing them intact, the document must be completely destroyed. Merely crumpling them cannot be an answer, as the paper can be straightened and information can be read. Paper shredding though, can be considered to be the best solution.

Documents can be accessed online as well by unauthorized people, who are technically known as the hackers. These people can very well get into other people’s accounts and access them as if they were the owners of the accounts themselves. They can transfer money into some other account, buy and sell things in the victim’s name, and may even change passwords so that the real owner cannot access his / her own account. The only way to protect against identity theft and fraud online is to have a complex and unbreakable password that hackers cannot easily get through and never letting antivirus and firewall expire. These things are easy to do and does not require any additional effort or, expense in the part of the concerned person, giving protection against fraud at the same time.