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How to Prevent Identity Theft

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First of all, let us talk about what is identity theft. Identity theft is the stealing another person personal information through fraud or cheating and uses it for ill purposes by assuming the identity of that person.  Most of the time identity theft is done to open an account or get credit cards benefits on another person name. Identity theft can result in dangerous consequences for the person whose identity is compromised.

Many signs can alert you whether your identity is compromised or not. Some of the warnings are mentioned below:

  • Loans or credit card requests are getting declined for no seeming reason.
  • Credit information report shows extra facilities you never availed.
  • Getting calls for the debt service you never actually availed.
  • Getting bills from the shops, you never buy from.

If you get to know in the start that your identity is compromised by giving enough attention to these signs, your loss due to identity theft would be less.

Moreover, there are many steps that you can take to keep yourself safe from identity theft. Better prepare yourself than sorry later. The specialist from siloans.com has indicated the following aspects that should be taken care of.

1. Online Safety

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While using a credit card, debit card, or internet banking on any website, make sure that the website is secure. Don’t give such kind of information on every website. Giving your personal information on such sites would most probably result in identity theft. Moreover, choose difficult and long-ranging passwords for the sites that may contain sensitive information about you. Use letters, numbers, and dashes, etc. to make the password difficult to breach and guess. Also, avoid using the same password for many sites. You do not want to compromise other sites if one site is compromised.

2. Now and then monitor your credit information report

You need to get into the habit of analyzing your credit card information now and then. People leave the credit report monitoring on the credit card companies, and that is lousy on their part. Be aware of your reports and if you see any recourse mentioned on the report that you have not availed then contact the relevant authorities as early as possible. You can also put a freeze or an extra measure of protection such as fraud alert on your credit card. With such measures, any suspected fraudulent transaction would be reported back to you immediately.

3. Do not share your personal information with everyone

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You should not share your personal information with everyone. If someone calls you and ask such things, make sure to verify the caller’s identity and reason to get this information. Most of the time, cheaters portray themselves as banks employee to get personal information from you, but the bank does not require this information as they already have those on their systems.

4. Take care of your mail

You have to take care of your mail, and if you need to throw the mail, you better shred it rightly and then dispose of it. Most of the times, frauds get your personal information from your unattended mailboxes.