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Reducing
Your Risk of Identity Theft
It
is impossible to prevent identity theft entirely in our modern,
highly automated, and computerized society.
Just as you cannot completely control whether you will
become a victim of any crime, such as robbery or car theft, you
can reduce your risk by locking you doors and windows.
You can reduce your risk to identity theft by handling
your personal information wisely, with care, and with an
awareness of the issues.
What You Can Do Today:
Order
A Copy Of Your Credit Report From The Three Major Credit
Bureaus.
Your credit report contains information on where you work, and
live, the credit accounts that have been opened in your name
with your account numbers and credit limits, a history of how
you pay your bills, whether you have been sued, filed for
bankruptcy, or been arrested.
For more information on credit reports, see our
“Understanding Your Credit” section.
Make sure your credit report is accurate and includes
only those activities you have authorized.
The new federal FACTA law gives you the right to a free
annual credit report from each of the credit bureaus.
By checking your report on a regular basis you can catch
mistakes and fraud, before they wreak havoc on your personal
finances. Do not
underestimate the importance of keeping an eye on your credit
status. The most
common way that consumers find out that they are victims of
identity theft is when they try to make a major purchase, like a
house or a car, and need a loan.
The deal can be lost or delayed while your credit report
chaos is straightened out.
Sometimes this can take years.
Knowing what is on your credit report, allows you not
only to fix problems before they jeopardize your plans for a
loan, but also guards against identity theft happening without
your knowledge.
Place Passwords On Your Credit Card, Bank And Phone Accounts.
Avoid using easily obtainable information about you, such as
your mother’s maiden name, your birth date, the last four
digits of your SSN, your phone number, or a series of
consecutive numbers like 1234. When opening new accounts, you
may find that many businesses still have a line on their
applications for your mother’s maiden name.
Use a password instead of your mother’s maiden name and
keep the information secure.
Ask
About Personal Information Security Procedures At Your
Workplace.
Find out who has access to your personal information and
verify that records are kept in a secure location. Ask about the disposal procedures for those records as well.
Your concerns may uncover a security problem that needs
to resolved.
Secure
Personal Information In Your Home.
This is especially important if you have roommates, employ
outside help, or are having work done in your home. Personal information is not only stolen from your home in
robberies. It is
also taken by an easy opportunity.
Don’t
Give Out Personal Information On The Phone, Through The Mail, Or
Over The Internet.
Unless you initiated the contact, or are completely sure you
know whom you’re dealing with, don’t give out personal
information on the phone, through the mail, or over the
Internet. Identity
thieves may pose as representatives of your current bank or
other banks, Internet service providers (ISPs), and even
government agencies, to get you to reveal your SSN, mother’s
maiden name, account numbers, and other identifying information.
Before you share any personal information, confirm that
you are dealing with a legitimate organization.
You can check the organization’s website, as many
companies post scam alerts when their name is used improperly in
scams, or you can call customer service number listed on your
account statement or in the telephone book.
Guard
Your Mail And Trash From Theft.
Deposit outgoing
mail a U.S. Post Office collection box or at your local post
office, rather than in an unsecured mailbox.
Promptly remove your incoming mail from your mailbox.
If you are planning to be away from home for several days
and can’t pick up your mail, call the U.S. Postal Service at
1-800-275-8777 to request a vacation hold.
The Postal Service will hold your mail at your local post
office until you can pick it up or are back home to receive it.
To thwart an
identity thief who may pick through your trash or recycling bins
to get your personal information, tear or shred your charge
receipts, copies of credit applications, insurance forms,
physician statements, checks and bank statements, expired credit
cards that you’re discarding, and the dozens of credit offers
you get in the mail each week.
This “garbage” is a goldmine for identity thieves.
Shredders are cheap insurance that can be bought at any
local office supply store such as Staples or OfficeMax, and
warehouse and electronics stores like Costco, BJ’s, Best Buy,
Circuit City, etc.
Protect
Your Social Security Number
Give out your
SSN only when absolutely necessary.
Ask to use other types of identity when possible.
If your state uses your SSN as your driver’s license
number, ask to substitute another number.
Most states will.
Your employer
and financial institutions will have to have your SSN for wage
and tax reporting purposes.
Other businesses may ask you for your SSN to do a credit
check, such as when you apply for a loan, rent an apartment, or
sign up for utilities. Sometimes,
businesses simply want your SSN for general record keeping.
You do not have to give a business your SSN just because
they ask for it. If someone asks for your SSN, ask the following questions:
Why do you need my SSN?
How will my SSN be used?
What will happen if I don’t give you my SSN?
A business may not provide you with the service or benefit you
are looking for if you do not provide your SSN. Getting answers to these questions will help you decide
whether you want to share your SSN with that business.
Remember – the decision is yours.
Mortgage Trust Group, Inc., as a mortgage company can not
provide you with a mortgage without an SSN for a credit report.
Without an SSN there is no credit report and no mortgage.
Without W-2s, Pay-stubs, Tax Returns, etc., all that
content your SSN, there is also no mortgage unless you are
applying for a program that does not require those documents.
Use commonsense in giving out your SSN.
Some businesses require your SSN to do what you want then
to do for you, and others do not.
Carry
Only The Personal Information You Need With You
Don’t carry
your SSN card with you. Leave
it in a secure place. Carry
only the identification information and the number of credit and
debit cards that you’ll actually need.
Keep your purse or wallet in a safe place at work and
about town.
Pay Attention To Your Bills
Pay attention to
your billing cycles. Follow
up with creditors if your bills don’t arrive on time.
A missing credit card bill could mean an identity thief
has taken over your account and changed your billing address to
cover their tracks. It
could also mean your bill was lost in the mail and you will get
a late on your credit report.
Secure Your Computer
You may be
careful about locking your doors and windows, and keeping your
personal papers us in a secure place.
But, depending on what you use your personal computer
for, an identity thief may never need to set foot in your house
to steal your personal information.
SSNs, financial tax returns, birth dates, and bank
account numbers may be stored in your computer – a goldmine to
an identity thief. The
following tips can help you keep your computer and your personal
information safe:
Update your
virus protection software regularly.
Symantec
and McAfee
sell cheap anti-virus software that up-dates to new threats
weekly. Computer
viruses can have an assortment of damaging effects, including
introducing code that causes your computer to send out files or
other stored information on your computer to an identity thief.
Be on the alert for security repairs and patches that you
can download from your operating system’s website.
Windows runs on over 85% of the world’s computers and
is the favor target of hackers developing virus to both steal
and destroy information on your computer. Run Windows
Update often and/or download the automatic
notification of updates plug-in.
Spyware, which
differs from viruses, can also be used to steal your
information. It is impossible to travel the Internet and not pick up
Spyware. Spyware
includes “cookies” that keep track of who you are to welcome
you back to a site, to “keyloggers” that record and transmit
back to its “master” everything you type into your computer
without your knowledge. Thereby
sending the identity thief all your information from passwords
to your finances. Most
computer users notice the effects of Spyware as their computer
slows down. This is
caused by the dozens upon dozens of little Spyware programs
running on your system without your knowledge.
Two of the most
respected, anti-malicious Spyware programs, are available free
for personal use – Adware
and Spybot
Search and Destroy.
There have been cases of anti-Spyware programs advertised
in pop-ups that were Spyware themselves.
There are even Internet sites cloning the Adware and
Spybot sites that try to confuse you to download their malicious
Spyware program, as they masquerade as the original – identity
thieves! Install
both anti-Spyware programs, update them and run them both often,
as they detect and remove different malicious Spyware.
You will not only protect your system and information,
but you will also speed up your computer’s performance.
Use a firewall
program, especially if you use a high-speed internet connection
like cable, DSL or T-1, which leaves your computer connected to
the internet 24 hours a day.
The firewall program will allow you to stop uninvited
“guests” from accessing your computer from a remote location
through your internet connection.
Without a firewall program, hackers can take over your
computer and access your personal information stored on your
computer.
Use a secure
browser, the software that encrypts or scrambles information you
send over the Internet to guard the security of your online
transactions. Be sure your browser has the most up-to-date encryption
capabilities by using the latest version available from the
manufacturer. You
also can download some browsers for free over the Internet.
When submitting information, look for the ”lock” icon
on the browser’s status bar to be sure your information is
secure during transmission.
Try not to store
financial information on your laptop unless absolutely
necessary. If you
do, use a strong password, a combination of letters (upper and
lower case), numbers, and symbols.
Do not use an automatic login feature, which saves your
user name and password, so you don’t have to re-enter them
each time you login or enter a site.
Always log off when you’re finished with a site.
That way, if your laptop gets stolen, it’s harder for
the thief to access your personal information, password, and
usernames.
Before you dispose of a computer, delete all personal
information. Computers
are considered a hazardous waste now due to the metals and
toxins in the electronics, and are sent to “recycling”
centers. Your old
computer or hard drive may end up at a flee market or in a third
world country. Deleting
files using the keyboard or mouse commands is not enough to
destroy the information, as the files may stay on the
computer’s hard drive, where they may be easily retrieved.
Recovery programs are cheaply purchased in any computer
store. They are
manufactured to help computer users recover their files after a
critical failure or a virus.
Use a “wipe” utility program to overwrite the entire
drive, reformat or defragment your drives.
These processes make the files unrecoverable.
Do not forget the information you have stored or backed
up on to floppy disks, zip drives, back-up tapes, etc., as well.
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