Be an informed consumer and know how to prevent a possible identity theft.

Beware of the word “prevent”: There is no person and no product that can prevent identity theft. The criminals will continue to benefit as long as there are ways to steal personal information. Sensitive personal information can be found everywhere, housed and archived in variety of ways. Every individual and company should take the initiative and store personal information in a safe manner so that it does not fall into the hands of the scammers.

There are no guarantees: There is no guarantee to anything and identity theft is no exception. While a number of instances of fraud can be restored to pre-theft status, some identity dilemmas simply can’t be fixed. If you’re on the ‘no fly list’ thanks to an imposter or an error, you’ll stay there. A third-party solution cannot deliver a remedy.

Watch for shoulder surfers and skimmers: Be careful with your personal information when you are in public place. With the advent of cell phone cameras, anyone can take a picture of your credit or debit card and they will get your private information pretty easily, if you are not careful.

Keep your social security card safe at home: There is no reason to carry cards displaying sensitive information like your social security card.

Destroy the old computer before you dump it: Your personal computer can have a lot of personal information in it. It is always recommended to physically remove the hard drives before you dump it. This is to ensure that your personal information can not be retrieved even if erased.

Don’t keep your personal information and the password stored on any website by the password manager. When convenience trumps confidentiality, you are actually inviting trouble.

Keep a photocopy of the personal material you carry in your wallet. If your wallet is stolen, you will be left wondering what was actually taken and if it had your credit cards, driving license, you will find hard to track the numbers. You need to have enough information of the lost item so that you can immediately inform the appropriate agencies.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 at 6:17 pm and is filed under Identity Theft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.