Identity Theft - Protect your identity to protect your money

If someone steals your money from your bank account or any financial document using your personal identification details, we call this method of stealing as Identity theft. If a person can steal your personal identification details like your name, credit card numbers, email ids and password or social security number, he/she can easily take out all money from your bank account or can apply for credit on your name or even can get job on the basis of your social security number. It is not easy to solve such cases. It can get you into heavy debts and can ruin your credit score. In some cases, people are not able to recover from heavy financial loss.

There are several ways to steal your identity from you. The most common method is to steal your wallet with the help of which anyone can have your name, address and credit cards with the help of which he/she can quickly clear your bank account. Another way is to steal mail from your mailbox or change the mailing address in the post office in order to get your mail at the address given by thief. This type of thief can even use documents like old bills, bank statements etc throw away by you in garbage which has personal details about you. The most new form of identity theft is stealing identity through internet in which virus like Trojan send by thief through mails can get any type of personal information from your computer’s hard drive.

Identity theft is preventable and there are number of ways to avoid it. Following are some common ways to protect your identity:

• Monitor your account by checking it on weekly basis to check each and every transaction.
• Always check your credit report at least once in a year. You can ask for your credit report from credit bureaus too.
• Tear all your documents like old bills or bank statement before dumping them to dustbin.
• If your wallet is stolen by thief, then immediately inform bank, credit card companies and credit bureaus.
• Never open spam mails and never give reply to such mails.
• Use a good anti-virus in order to prevent your computer from viruses and unwanted application programs.