How To Protect Yourself From Identity Theft

Around 15 million people in this country are victims of identity fraud each and every year and this number is growing. This essentially means that 7% of the population has already been victimized. The average amount of financial losses for each case is $3,500. That is a serious amount of money that most of us simply haven't got to spare. So how do you make sure you don't become the next victim of identity theft? Hopefully, the following tips will help.

Tips to Protect Yourself

First of all, there is your physical, everyday behavior. Make sure you shred every document that you throw away that has your name and address on it. Also, never walk around with all your bank cards and other documents with your information, including your Social Security Card.

Secondly, there is your online behavior. Most of this kind of theft now occurs online, which means you have to be very cautious when online. You must have a good firewall and virus scanner installed on your computer. You must also make sure that you use strong, unique passwords for every online account you have. Finally, never sign up for anything with your personal details unless you are 100% sure that the site can be trusted.

Finally, you should consider signing up for an identity protection service. Consider services like the one available at http://www.identityguard.com/. While no service can 100% prevent this crime from occurring, services like this allow you to be warned early on so that you can take appropriate action should you fall victim to an identity thief. One of the things these services do is send you an alert whenever there are specific changes observed on your credit report information obtained from the main credit bureaus.

As you can see, there are plenty of things you can do to stop yourself from becoming the next statistic and victim of this type of theft. Or, if you suddenly find yourself a victim, you become aware of it as early as possible so that you take the necessary actions to prevent further damage to your finances and reputation.