Smart Money Blog

Identity Theft: How To Protect Yourself

With identity theft on the rise, and the fact that credit cards are one of the most common ways to attain your information, I thought it was necessary to address some ways to keep yourself safe.

There are over 500,000 new cases every year, and that number is rising. It is usually very hard to catch the perpetrator, and even if they do, the punishment is still light in most states.

Card companies have to eat some of the losses, and when they do, that lowers our benefits, and raises our fees. Slowing this problem will be beneficial for all of us, and also make our techniques more profitable.

1.) Watch Your Credit Report - The best way to keep an eye on your credit report, and catch problems early, is obviously signing up for a credit tracking account. If you’d like my top choices, click here. If anything shows up on your report that isn’t supposed to be there, you can resolve the problem much faster than waiting around for your statements to show up.

2.) Secure Online Payments - Credit card companies are coming up with innovative new ways to keep your online accounts secure, and I suggest you use them. Rather than sending your information through the mail, go ahead and sign up for the online payment option. Not only will you be able to better track your finances with sites like Yodlee, but you will also be more secure. Make sure you only access your accounts through the card companies site, or through Yodlee, anything else should be considered unsecure.

3.) Get A Shredder - This is basically common knowledge, but whenever you receive sensitive information in the mail, make sure you shred the documents. Giving it a rip isn’t considered good enough anymore, shredding it makes it much harder to piece together.

4.) Be Aware - One of the best ways to combat identity theft, is to be aware of the problem. Whenever you put in a password, or any other personal information, take a second look to make sure it is 100% secure. There are hundreds of sites that are made to looks just like Ebay, Myspace, etc., but they were created specifically to steal your information.

There are many more ways to further your security, but this is a good start. Be careful out there

One Response to “Identity Theft: How To Protect Yourself”

1. Tim K. Says:
   May 17th, 2007 at 5:51 pm

   Thanks for the tips, I’ve been meaning to sign up for my card issuers online services. That will hopefully cut down my amount of time spent paying bills, and make it more secure.

   Tim

Leave a Reply