Simple tips prevent ID theft
Identity theft is an issue reaching epidemic proportions. It is an invasion of legal privacy and can fell like a personal violation as well. Yet there are things to prevent it. There are simple tips to prevent ID theft.
Be proactive to protect your information and your credit. I recommend you review your credit report twice a year, carefully inspect it for any possible indicators that your information has been compromised. Here’s what you should be looking for: addresses you’ve never lived at, jobs you’ve never had, names you don’t go by any extra social security numbers that are not yours, any inquires you yourself did not authorize and of course any trade lines for accounts that do not belong to you; these are key indicators that someone is fraudulently using your personal information.
It is also a good idea to contact the three credit reporting agencies- Equifax, Experian and Trans union- and request that a consumer statement be placed on your credit file advising them not to grant credit to anyone who is in possession of the signature and social security card at the time of application. You may also have your phone number placed on your file so that the credit grantor may contact you for authorization if the above documents are not provided.
While credit monitoring services are helpful, they alert you to identify theft only after it has taken place. In an attempt to be proactive, it would be best to use a company that locks your information to prevent theft from happening at all. One example of such a company would be Life Lock. I can testify that I have, on more than one occasion, experienced the effects of Life Lock when I was unable to pull to pull a credit report for a client until they unlocked their information by contacting Life Lock and providing a pin number for authorization.
Those are just a few of the tools you might utilize to protect yourself from identity theft.