The idea of being a victim of identity theft is scary, and preventing identity theft these days is hard. Although there’s no guarantee you’ll never be a victim, there are steps you can to take to reduce your risk. Use the tips below to help protect your personal information.
Be Wary Of Giving Out Your Personal Information
Don’t give your personal information to just anyone. Scammers will commonly call or email you pretending to be banks, charities, or debt collectors in order to gather sensitive information. If you receive a call from a suspicious source asking for your address, date of birth, or social security number, don’t give them your information. Financial and government institutions recognize that giving your full social security number over the phone is an unsafe practice, so they typically won’t call you and ask for that information.
Use Strong Passwords
When creating a password, try not to use anything that will be easy to guess. Instead, create a password using a variety of numbers, symbols, and both lowercase and uppercase letters. It’s also important to create different passwords for all of your accounts. By having different passwords, you will have a lower chance of all your accounts being compromised if one account gets hacked.
If you’re worried about remembering all of your different passwords, try using a trustworthy password management software like LastPass.
Shred Your Sensitive Documents
Shredding your documents can be time consuming, but the extra time may save you a lot of stress down the road. Although identity thieves often gather personal information online, the trash is still a viable option for finding people’s sensitive information. Before throwing any bills or documents away, make sure they don’t contain any personal information.
Regularly Check Your Credit Report
It’s important to monitor your credit reports to ensure no one has used your information to open new accounts. With services like Credit Karma, you can monitor your accounts for free. Make sure you check these accounts at least once per year, and if you notice anything strange, dispute the problem immediately.
In Conclusion
By keeping your personal information safe and regularly monitoring your credit reports, you can significantly decrease your chances of becoming a victim of identity theft. Knowing what’s going on with your accounts and how your information is being used will give you peace of mind and can help you in the long run. Because, if worse comes to worse, the sooner you notice a problem, the sooner you can fix it!
