Identity theft is the newest version of robbing your bank. But there is no FDIC help on it this go around.
“Innocent victims of identity theft sometimes do suffer losses. And if the crime is not detected early, people may face months or years cleaning up the damage to their reputation and credit rating, and sometimes they lose out on loans, jobs and other opportunities in the meantime.”
That’s really all they offer in the area of identity theft clean-up. Prevention is another story. Prevention is the jest of this post and this site.
It is baffling that individuals are so reluctant to recognize the pending threat. Just because you shove your head in the sand doesn’t elevate the problem. This is a call to arms people! In 2008, 10 million people were deemed victims of identity theft. That’s 22% more than the previous year. The degree of the felony varies from state to state as does the liability of the action. Restitution of the funds may not fix the credit history that you will have to deal with for the years to come. But if you protect yourself, the problem goes away:
- Protect your Social Security number (SSN), credit card and debit card numbers, PINs (personal identification numbers), passwords and other personal information.
- Protect your incoming and outgoing mail.
- Keep your financial trash “clean”.
- Keep a close watch on your bank account statements and credit card bills.
- Avoid identity theft on the Internet by using secure avenues like Paypal.
- Exercise your new rights under FACTA to review your credit record and report fraudulent activity.
- Make sure your financial institution has a no-liability policy
The breakdown for the stats behind identity theft is not pretty. About 10% of the entire population of the United States has had their identity “hijacked” to date.
Our goal at ProtectIdentity is to raise awareness with the hope that doing so will help to stop the rapid increasing of this hanis crime.
