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Ten Commandments To Save Yourself From ID Theft
The biggest mantra to save yourself from being a sorry victim of identity theft is ‘Constant Vigilance’! And even that is not enough. Here are the ten commandments to ensure your protection from falling to this crime:-) Thou shalt never speak out or give out thy personal information in vain. -
If you are careless about your own personal information, then you cannot blame anyone when it gets used for unauthorized purposes. Keep your credit cards and driving license safe, never speak out your numbers and other information on the phone, never type your identifying information on chat windows and even in emails, etc. These are the rules which you need to implement with your own commonsense to remain untouched by the identity thieves. Thou shalt invest in a paper shredder. -
Dumpster diving is one of the commonest and easiest ways by which identity thieves get at other people’s information. So you should be careful not to throw about your credit card bills and mail that contains anything that can be traced back to you in the garbage. The best way is to invest in a paper shredder and destroy such correspondence. A good quality shredder is needed to really shred out everything – the straight line shredders may be no good, because the shreds can be pieced together. The best are the cross-cut paper shredders. This is a small investment to protect you from the huge hazards of identity theft. Thou shalt monitor thy children’s activities on the Internet. -
Many identity thieves target children. In some places, children are allowed to have credit cards and bank accounts. Do not give these to your children till they are of age; it is for their own safety. Also install parental control software on your PC and use monitoring programs that can show you how your kids are using the Internet. In fact, you must also be particular about their telephonic conversations. For your own and your children’s safety, keep all your personal information away from them. Thou shalt not be gullible about commercial advertisements. -
Advertisements are meant to make you dreamy eyed. But you need to keep your wits about you and think millions of times over before responding to them in any way. This is true of ads in all media. There are tons of flashy ads that belong to shady businesses that will be gone with the wind… with your money and worse, your personal information like your phone number, address and even credit card number. Thou shalt not be a frog in the well. -
Keep updated with modern technology. All criminals do. If there is some new technology introduced in the world, you can be sure the thieves are already perfecting methods to make a greasy buck out of it. The Internet, Bluetooth, mobile computing, everything can be attacked. Know about the protection you would need with every new device you buy. Thou shalt not answer ‘phishy’ emails. -
Mails that appear to come from dubious sources are most assuredly scam mails, even though they lead you to websites that look good. This is phishing; people who send such mails are ‘phishing’ for your personal information. Do not fall a prey to this. Do not answer suspicious emails even if they promise you the moon, or say that it is “just for confirmation purposes; won’t be given out to third parties”. Third parties! That’s funny, because here it is the second party that you need to be careful of! Thou shalt always keep thyself protected. -
The good is always one step better than the evil, but the main thing is, you need to find out where the ‘good’ lies. In case of id theft – online or offline – there are several methods that can protect you from vicious identity snatchers. The offline first – invest in an identity theft protection service, especially if you have a business. These people will constantly monitor your transactions to see that nothing untoward is happening. Now the online – here’s a wealth of resources you can use. There are antispyware and anti-adware applications to install, firewalls to setup and define, antivirus programs and so much else. Make sure that you get reputed brands of everything and get a professional to configure your protection with firewalls. Thou shalt not transact with dubious websites. -
If you yourself invite peril, there is no saving you. Do not make any transactions with websites that look suspicious and of which you know nothing about. Howsoever good the product might be, always search for things like user reviews (on a neutral site) to assure yourself of their veracity. Look for the Verisign or similar symbol. This means the website itself is protected by hackers, and that will ensure your information is safe with the site. But if knowingly you transact on these websites – most porn sites are a good example – then there can be no way out. Thou shalt not post your information anywhere except where it is absolutely needed. -
This is just a measure of how stupid some people can be! People post their identifying information as though it was a flyer in the school locker room. Information is given out in chat windows quite freely. Remember that no chatting service is sacrosanct. There’s always someone spying. Even into your emails for that matter, but the consolation is that it is virtually impossible to hack into an email service. Do not post your information even on your website, unless you are perfectly sure of the purpose. A simple Google search in your name can tell people who you exactly are and how to find you. Thou shalt report identity theft immediately. -
Finally, you are duty-bound to report identity theft if it occurs without any delay. You have to report it to at least three people – the police, the company and the credit reporting agencies. The last one is for your own good, but the first two are so that the thieves might be brought to book and further victimization of people might be avoided. |
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This intel was contributed by rpsmith
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May, 2012
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