Protecting Yourself from Identity Theft
According to the FBI, identity theft is one of the fastest
growing crimes in the United States. 500,000 to 700,000
Americans become identity theft victims each year. A federal
crime, identity theft occurs when a person uses someone’s
name, Social Security number, or any account number for
unlawful activities.
Gone are the days when canceling credit cards and closing
existing checking and savings accounts are adequate damage
control measures for a lost or stolen wallet. Once armed
with your personal information, identity thieves can open
new accounts in your name, apply for credit and leave bills
unpaid, apply for telephone service or utility service, print
counterfeit checks and even apply for government benefits.
These activities could go on for years without your even
being aware of it. Thieves access information by stealing
wallets, mail, information from home computers, records
from schools, stores or other places, and even documents
from the trash.
Plastic Card Fraud Prevention
Practice these steps to keep yourself — and all of your
important information — away from would-be fraudsters.
- Don’t have more information printed on your cards than
necessary. Make sure you don’t use your Social Security
number as your driver’s license number. Ask your insurance
company if you can use another number as your
member number. Never carry your Social Security card
with you. Choose a PIN number that is difficult to guess. Don’t use
birthdays, part of your phone number, or your address.
Try to mix numbers and symbols when possible.Never carry more cards than you will use. The more
cards you have, the more accounts you will have to
close if you are a victim of theft. Make a copy everything
in your wallet so you will remember what you had
if a theft does occur. Keep the copies with a list of
account numbers and the phone numbers you would
need to report a theft and close accounts. Ask your credit card companies about their information
sharing policies. Often you can request that your information
not be shared or used for other promotions.
- When writing checks to make payments on your credit
card accounts, do not put the complete account number
on the “For” line. Instead, just put the last four numbers.
The credit card company knows the rest of the number,
and anyone who might handle your check as it passes
through all the check processing channels won’t have
access to it.
Since one in 10 instances of identity theft stays hidden for
two years or more, prevention is vitally important. By protecting
your information, you are protecting yourself. This is the first in a series of articles on identity theft. Next quarter watch for more ways to prevent it from happening to you.
Information in this article was taken in part from a booklet
entitled, “Identity Theft,” developed by the Federal Reserve
Bank of Boston.
|
