ByIdentity theft comes in several forms, each targeting different parts of your personal information. The most common type is financial identity theft, where someone uses your details to access money, open new accounts, or buy things. The impact of identity theft can be devastating.
If you fall victim to it, you can lose money and struggle to fix your credit. It also takes a lot of time to clear your name and fix your financial records. Even after the problem is solved, the stress and worry can last a while. In this article, we will go over some measures to take to protect yourself from identity theft.
1 – Remove your personal information from the internet
Although it’s hard to remove all your information from the internet, taking steps to lessen your online presence can help lower your risk of being targeted.
An important step is dealing with data broker sites. These companies collect your personal information and sell it. You can ask these sites to remove your details.
You should also clean up your presence on forums, shopping sites, and other places online where you might have shared your information before. Delete old posts and close accounts that you don’t need.
A service like DeleteMe can make this process easier. DeleteMe helps by scrubbing your name and images off the internet. They handle the removal requests for you, which can save a lot of time and effort.
2 – Secure your personal information
Protecting your personal documents is key to avoiding identity theft. This includes both the papers you keep in your home and the information you store online. For important papers like your social security card, passport, and birth certificate, keep them in a safe place like a locked drawer or a safe.
Only take them out when you really need them, and be careful about sharing your personal details, especially in public or over the phone.
When you need to throw away documents that have your personal information, like old bank statements or medical records, always shred them first. This stops thieves from being able to read your information from your trash. For your online information, use strong passwords that are long and include a mix of letters, numbers, and symbols.
3 – Financial precautions
It’s important to protect your financial information to prevent identity theft. Make it a habit to check your bank statements every month. This lets you quickly spot and report any transactions you didn’t authorize, helping you stop potential problems early.
Another good protection method is a credit freeze. This blocks lenders from seeing your credit report, making it hard for identity thieves to open new accounts in your name. Putting a freeze on your credit is free and doesn’t change your credit score, but remember, you’ll need to remove it temporarily if you want to apply for new credit yourself.
You should also consider setting up fraud alerts. When you have a fraud alert on your credit report, lenders need to take extra steps to make sure it’s really you who is trying to open new accounts.
