Are You Making These Mistakes That Made One Identity Thief Rich?
Stanly Q. Morgansten
Have you ever thought about what police officers do to protect themselves from identity theft? I wondered this myself. I am now about to reveal to you exactly what they told me "off the record".
According to the U.S. Postal Service, there were almost 12 million incidents of identity theft in the United States in 2006 at a cost of 6.3 billion to consumers. This alarming statistic has increased the alert level of many consumers; however most are still unaware of the specific tactics these identity thieves use. After an extensive interview, one notorious identity thief, revealed 4 misconceptions she used to separate you from your money.
Misconception # 1 There are More Male Identity Thieves Than Female All to often when we watch television or read the newspaper, we are presented with images of identity thieves portrayed as men. This could not be further from the truth. In fact, many of these criminals are young attractive women. Research has proven time and time again that both men and women tend to relax themselves around other women. These criminals use this to their advantage. Just remember, everyone is a potential thief. While you should not be nervous, you should be careful.
Misconception # 2 Relaxing Your Guard While Shopping or Eating Out This one is hard to overcome because in our society, we have grown use to not carry cash. It's simple and easy to hand over our credit or debit card to a waitress or cashiers to pay our bills. The problem is regardless of where you are or how nice the neighborhood is, you have just handed your personal information to a total stranger. You totally trust this person to only use that information for this transaction. What you don't know is that it is so very easy to steal your credit card information, store it on another card, and have it back to you in less than a few moments and you'll never know until you get the bill. To combat this, regularly look at your statements and begin to keep a daily spending journal and immediately respond to any discrepancies.
If you are really serious about this, you might want to establish an expenditure limit on your credit card. This would allow the credit card company to alert you whenever a transaction occurs over a certain dollar figure. This is very helpful because if you are like me, you use your debit or credit card for everything and tracking each minor expense would be very tedious.
Misconception # 3 Throwing Your Unopened Mail Away Here is a fact that you don't need much research to prove. In a month's time, you are likely to get between 12 to 60 credit offers by mail. Most people throw these offers out with the envelopes unopened. More credit savvy people shred their offers and then throw them out. The problem with the first idea is this, what happens when you take your trash out? Yes, you go back into the house or you get in your car and go to work. Who do you think knows your routine better than you do? That's right, our friendly neighborhood identity thief. Now for my shredders out there, good job on shredding the offers but that still is not enough. These days, my crooks are finding ways to piece these documents back together because most home shredders only cut one way.
Always remember that one man's trash is another man's treasure. These crooks do not play fair. Consider this, you can spend a few minutes taking these precautions or you can spend a few months and in some cases years fighting to restore your credit and your good name.
Idea: You might also try running water over your personal mail before you trash it so that it becomes totally unreadable to potential thieves. Why would a thief waste time with your wet smudged mail when your neighbor's mail is so much easier for them to steal?
Misconception # 4 Using Your Home to Receive and Deliver Mail I'll keep this one short, because it is so very clear. By putting your outgoing mail or incoming mail in an unattended mailbox, you are exposing your personal information to potential thieves. You must stop this at once.
Another way to do this is by opening a post office box. For many this is a necessity because they do not arrive home in time to collect the mail as soon as it is delivered. If you give a crook access to your mail, it becomes a simple process of updating your address to theirs. Once done, you've lost a lot more than you think.
After learning everything mentioned above, I thought to myself, how anyone can do this alone. These thieves are getting smarter and more sophisticated everyday. It seems almost impossible to keep up. Years ago, I often wished that there was someway to ensure that my family would be safe. Today, there are finally companies that specialize in protecting consumers like us.
These services do work. Of course some work better than others but there are a few things you can look for when evaluating a potential service. First, do they have the endorsement from law enforcement officials or agencies? Lastly, is this an established company or some fly by night operation?
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