Identity Theft Protection

Posts Tagged ‘social security number’

The Federal Trade Commission and other affiliations have started identity theft prevention programs to try to make the public more mindful of techniques to protect their identity from the thieves who would like to use it for their own objectives.  These programs offer identity protection tips so that people know what to go looking for to see if a thief has accessed their information as well as offering recommendation on what to do to forestall it from occuring in the 1st place. 

Many of these identity theft prevention programs say that making the public conscious of the danger is the largest way to help to stop the difficulty from worsening.

Shredding Personal Papers

One tip in the identity theft prevention programs is to destroy any personal information before it is thrown into the trash can.  This is particularly important for any documents which will have full deposit account or social security info on it.  It’s also important for documents that have full credit card info on them,eg the credit card bills themselves. 

Phone and household bills can also be a problem since the account number is mentioned on the bill as well as the home address and identity thieves can occasionally get away with using just that info to add a connection or transfer an account so they can use it for their own objectives.

Social Security Number

Yet another tip from identity theft prevention programs is to safeguard the social security card and social security number at any price.  The social security card should be locked in a safe place where it will not be easily accessed by strangers.  If there are sharers in the home, the card should be stored in a locked place at any time.  It should never be carried in the wallet as it is too easy to rob it. 

To  Protect Yourself from Identity Theft, these prevention programs also alert not to give out the SSID number over the phone or Internet unless the individual has initiated the telephone call so they are sure that the business is genuine. 

Secure Passwords

Lastly, the identity theft prevention programs warn not to use apparent passwords when creating accounts, especially bank accounts and other high security accounts.  Many folks will use birth dates, their mother’s prenuptial name, or the last four digits of asocial security number and these are too simple for burglars to figure out, permitting them to access those accounts and steal cash from them.

As part of Norton Internet Security software, there’s a program called Identity Safe.  You can set a password within Identity Safe and the program will remember all of your login information for internet sites that you use often.  Make sure you use  a very complicated password for Identity Safe - a mixture of letters, both uppercase and lowercase, and numbers - they should be irregular numbers and letters that have no meaning.

Identity Theft Protection Services

Of course, there’s only a certain amount that an individual can do to guard themselves.  The best method is to use an Identity  Theft Protection Company; they’re amazingly cheap but the rewards are that you’ll not become the following identity theft statistic.  This is no joke, as an identity is thieved each two seconds in the USA; that’s over 15 million folks a year!