Helpful Tips About Identity Theft

With identity theft, sometimes you know right away when it happens. But sometimes, you don't find out until it has lingered for a while. Because of this "lingering," it can take a long time to correct a credit report that has been affected by someone stealing identity.

First, the best thing to do is to check your credit report at least once per year. Just contact a credit bureau and ask for a copy of your credit report. New government regulation allows you to get one free copy per year, from each of the three credit bureaus. Or if you have to pay full price, they're only about ten bucks a piece.

The nice thing about walking into the credit bureau and getting a copy of your report in person, is that, if you have questions, by law the credit bureau has to explain what each item means. It's like getting professional credit report counseling advice... for free. Remember, the idea is to get your credit report often enough so that any identity theft problems don't "fester" for a while... so if there's something you don't understand, take that time and opportunity to ask.

Of course, the drawback to getting your credit report in person is that you basically have to take a couple hours and do all this stuff, and you don't get the quick, in-home convenience that you have when getting your credit report over the internet.

So balance the trade-off and see which works best for you. If you haven't gotten your credit report in a long time, you may want to go to the credit bureau in person. After doing this, each successive year, you could get a copy of your report over the internet, and if there's something "strange" on your report, head back over to the credit bureau in person (you'll be able to get a lot more action quicker if done in person).

The second thing (and I don't know why more people don't talk about this) is to make a copy of all your "portable" information. For guys, this means a copy of everything identifiable in your wallet. For the fine ladies, it means a copy of the personal information kept in your purse.

What you do is take all the credit cards, debit card, bank cards, your driver's license, photo ID, library card, permits and any other personally identifiable type of card, and put all these on a photocopier and make copies of the front and back of each card. This will help a lot with credit and debit cards especially, because usually those cards have the customer service 800 number on the back (not to mention your account number and expiration date on the front).

After making the copies of all these cards, keep the copies in a safe place at home. That way, if any of these cards turn up missing, you can call the 800 numbers for each customer service and instantly have the account number for each missing card. You'd save a lot of time, and may get the information phoned in so quickly that they catch the thief that took your stuff.

Keep in mind that you really have to watch over your personal information and keep it close to you when out in public. A friend of mine was out having lunch with a couple of her friends and she hung her purse on the chair in a restaurant. She never left her purse, but the people in the table next to her somehow got into her purse and took her cards, without anyone seeing. Within an hour, the thief was already charging to her cards, but the good news is that they did catch the person. I hate to tell you to be "paranoid," but do watch out for your personal stuff because it has a lot of value to would-be thieves.

I haven't mentioned about online identity theft, as that's a huge problem too, but I found you a video that covers the basics and hits those precautions we need to take. This video comes from MicroSoft (MicroSoft of all places?) and you can see it by clicking here:

Three Minute Video About Online Identity Theft and Phishing

I hope that you never have to go through an identity theft problem, and that this information may be of benefit to you. I had to report an identity theft problem back in January of this year, the police came out and did a report, and it seemed to be resolved in about two months. Most identity theft problems probably don't go this smoothly, but they can be worked out in time and armed with the right precautions you may better protect yourself and could actually catch a thief trying to make off with your cards.

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