How to avoid getting into debt from identity theft

In this post I am including how to avoid debts from identity theft. I have already made a post on prevention of identity theft in my blog.  The reader’s of my blog keeps on requesting me to write on the prevention of identity theft. I think this is the most important thing for everyone to know. This is the reason I am writing this post again after doing some research on the web and I also had some chats with my friends and my readers. The points that I felt right, I am including in my post. Hope the tips will be helpful for my readers. I have already included few stories about identity theft in my blog before.

I read somewhere that 65,043 victims of identity theft are recorded by CIFAS Members in 2007. The need for each and every individual to know about the preventive methods is clear from this identity theft statistics. The following tips will help the readers to have full identity theft protection.

Here goes the ways to prevent identity theft:

1) The credit card and the debit cards should always kept with extra care.

2) The important documents like passport should be kept in a safe place. Never carry them with you unless they are required.

3) Few documents like the credit card bills, letters from doctor or employer should be shred after use. If these documents pass to the identity criminals then it will be enough raw materials for them to commit the identity fraud.

4) Always keep a thorough monitor of your bank accounts. All the credit card statements should be checked properly and kept until they are checked against the bank statements.

5) If any discrepancy is found between the bills and the bank statement then immediate step should be taken.

6) Never give your personal information to the callers, researchers or charity collectors without knowing how much genuine they are.

7) In case of online shopping never save your password and try to change your password as frequent as you can.

8) When you are shifting your house doesn’t forget to shift all your post to the shifted address.

9) While giving your personal information in the telephone to your banker be very careful. The identity theft criminal can cheat you by asking for your personal details by pretending as your banker.

10) The most important point is to secure your home. Secure the place where you keep all your valuable documents. The criminals will be more interested in taking your valuable documents rather than the television set or any other assets.

Above are the ten points that I have jotted down. I want to hear some from my readers too. In my next post onwards I will be writing on some other topic. If I get some new information on identity theft then I may include it in future.

Posted in Identity Theft | 34 Comments »

Information on identity theft and penalty

In this post I am including some facts on identity theft and penalty. Hope this information will make the reader feel secured and safe. You can always visit your state’s official website to know what is the identity theft and penalty in your state. I am just trying to provide a generalized idea about it.

Penalties on identity theft vary from state to state. It is obvious that there will be a series of charges on identity theft since it is not always a black and white issue. Now the question may come in your mind is what the penalty will be like!

The criminal may have to pay compensation equal to the loss incurred for the identity theft. All other damages that might have happened for the loss and the fees given to the attorney for the case may also be charged from the identity theft criminal.

More serious the case is more severe the identity theft penalty. The identity theft and penalty is equally proportional. The more severe the crime more is the amount of identity theft penalty. Well I think this is fair enough.

Do you know how much the penalty can raise upto?

Well it can be $50,000 fine with a imprisonment of 5 years or $100,000 and a imprisonment of 10 years.

Hope this information will make the identity theft criminals to think back before planning an identity theft fraud. For past few years the ID fraud crimes penalty have gotten very harsh.

I will suggest one thing to all my readers the identity theft and penalty will be effective only if the fraud is detected at the right time. If you want to keep yourself save from the identity theft criminals then keep a proper track of your finance. Now-a-days its very easy, you can contact the FTC(Federal Trade Commission) or FACTA(Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act) and get a free credit report.

I will request my readers to put in the comment section there own state’s identity theft penalty charges. This will make the other readers aware of the penalties of identity theft.

Posted in Identity Theft | 15 Comments »

Identity theft insurance

While searching on the web about identity theft, I came across some information on identity theft insurance. I really know little about this insurance but wanted to share whatever information I got from my research with my readers.

 It’s really weird of being a victim of identity theft. In most of the cases the victims are unable to identify the reason of identity theft.  The victim knows about the fact after incurring huge losses.

 Another unfortunate situation is that the victim is not able to use the existing credit. He is not able to get a new loan also. The debt collectors often harass them and he may go under criminal investigations or may get arrested also. No one wants to be in such a situation.

Here I want to include the good news. Insurance can cover identity theft.  Few companies’ auto policies and homeowner provides such identity theft services without any extra cost. In this kind of service the victim is guided by a fraud specialist. This fraud specialist helps the victim to restore and protect their identity. In few companies this service is included in the home owner’s insurance policy. This insurance helps an identity theft victim to get his expenses associated with the identity and credit restoration process. He may get reimbursement of the phone bills, lost salaries, certified mailing cost etc.

Hope this will be very helpful for my readers. If anyone of you know more about this service then please let us know about it. I will also try to collect some more information on this topic and will publish in future.

Posted in Identity Theft | 8 Comments »

Practical ways to prevent identity theft

One of my friends asked me to write few ways on how to prevent identity theft. I was planning to include few more case studies on identity theft but due to the request of my friend I am jotting down few points on how we can prevent this crime to happen. The points are all my own view about the topic and the measures that I maintain to avoid this kind of crime to happen. I have also researched a bit on the web and tried to summarize few of them. I will expect some preventive measures from my readers too……

The above are few points that I follow. As I said before that some ideas are taken from some web research. I would like to hear some ideas from my readers. You may include a real life experience and the remedy of that. In my next post I will try to give a case study and few point with that how to avoid such things to happen. Hope that will help my readers.

Posted in Identity Theft | 25 Comments »