There is no doubt that identity theft is a huge problem in this country. If you have not spent any time thinking about how to protect yourself, then you need to start. The problems that come along with having your identity stolen can take years to fully correct. The loss of money and time can be hard to measure, and many victims have found themselves unable to purchase a home or a car as a result. Below are three tips for receiving the best ID theft protection possible.
1.Be Vigilant
The number of personal paper shredders sold in the United States has increased more than a hundred fold in the last five years. One of the main reasons for this is that people are being very protective of their personal information. All of your mail, including bills, credit card offers and bank statements, could provide a portal into your life should these documents wind up in the hands of an identity thief.
While, to some, it might seem like a bit much to take the time to shred all of your mail before throwing it away, it is that kind of vigilance that may stop you from becoming a victim.
The two tips below will stress the importance of getting help in protecting your identity from being stolen, but the task starts with you and your own actions.
The obvious moves, such as making sure that your social security number does appear on your checks and not giving out personal information over the phone, are just the tips of the iceberg. There are dozens of small steps that you can take to make sure that no one has access to sensitive information.
Among them: shredding your mail, frequently changing your online passwords and being sure to completely wipe your hard drive when selling or donating old computers.
Even if it feels like overkill, it is this type of care that will help you to protect your identity.
2.Don’t Do It Alone
While your own vigilance is one very important step in receiving the best ID theft protection, it is not the only step. Because there are so many possible ways for an identity thief to gain access to your information, it is almost impossible for you to remember to cover every base. That is why it is important to add the extra layers of protection available from any one of the companies that offer services designed to protect you.
One of the best ways that you can make sure that no one can open any types of financial accounts or take loans in your name is to put a lock on your credit report. Companies, such as Life Lock, handle this for you. For a small monthly fee they will lock your credit reports and monitor for unusual activity. They also provide reimbursement for any expenses should your identity be stolen.
In addition, services such as Life Lock also handle all of the leg work that is involved in working to get everything straightened out should your identity be stolen. That alone is worth the monthly fee to many, especially when you consider the hundreds – or even thousands – of hours it can take to get everything back in order.
3.Shop Around
While there are many companies that offer similar identity theft protection services, it is a good idea to shop around. In addition to pricing, you also want to take the time to fully compare all of the features and benefits offered by each of them.
Do not go just by what is listed on the website. Remember, what you see there is their sales material. Instead, you need to see the actual contracts from each company in order to make an informed decision.
Most will not send you a contract until after you have signed up. Because you are typically allowed to pay monthly and then cancel at anytime, sign up for more than one. Then, take your time reviewing the features of each as listed in the contract.
Once you have made your decision, just cancel the others. You will only be out one month’s fee for the ones that you cancel, but it is worth it to be able to know that you have selected the best identity theft protection.
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Like millions of Americans do each year, you may be shopping around for some credit repair options. Having a few dings on your credit can make it difficult to buy a house, car or obtain a credit card, so it is no wonder that people with less than perfect credit would seek a solution. Below are four tips for receiving the best credit repair.
1.Don’t Believe the Marketing Materials
If you do a quick internet search for credit repair, you are likely to find several listings from companies that make promises to teach you how to remove negative items from your credit history. Do not believe a word of it.
If it were truly possible to have such items removed then everyone would have excellent credit and, truly, there would be no purpose to the credit bureaus.
The truth is that all of those promises are aimed to do nothing more than convince you to sign up for the program and pay the fee. Sadly, once that happens, you will quickly learn that all of the promises that sounded too good to be true were exactly that.
To receive the best credit repair, you are going to have to ignore all of the marketing materials. Do not allow these promises to sway your decision. You will end up disappointed every time.
2.Be Ethical
Another dilemma that faces many seeking credit repair is the fact that many credit repair agencies encourage you to lie in order to get negative items taken off of your report. They teach you to claim that an account is not yours, even if you know that it does, in fact, belong to you.
The thinking is that if you challenge all of your accounts, that perhaps at least one creditor will fail to respond and, therefore, the item will be dropped from your credit report.
For obvious reasons, this is highly unethical. If you are seeking to receive the best credit repair, this should not including lying and being deceitful in order to get your way.
Instead, refuse to do anything unethical. Even though you might have to wait a bit longer for the negative items on your credit report to come off, at least you will know that you did it the right way.
3.Do it Alone
One thing that the marketing materials of credit repair agencies will not tell you is that you can probably do a better job of credit repair on your own. Keep in mind that negative items that are correct cannot be removed by any third party agency.
In some cases, however, the creditor will agree to remove some or all of the negative items. This is usually done as part of a settlement and is a courtesy from the creditor. No creditor is under any obligation to remove correct negative items from your credit report, even after you have paid the account in full.
If you have some late payments on credit card accounts, call the card issuer. Ask if they would be willing to remove any of the negative items that they reported in exchange for full payment on the account.
Not all credit card companies will be willing to do that, but you have a better chance of getting it done by speaking to them directly rather than trying to work through some third party.
4.What Are You Paying For?
Many credit repair agencies charge a high fee in order to give you access to their “secrets” that will allow you to transform your tarnished credit report into a glowing one. These secrets are not worth the paper that they are printed on. Do not waste your money.
Again, there is no way for a third party to remove any negative items from your credit report. Even if there are mistakes on your report, you do not need to pay a credit repair agency to have them removed.
Instead, simply file a complaint with the credit bureau on which the false item appears. They will investigate and, if it was indeed a mistake, the negative item will be removed at no cost.
While it would be great if there were some quick fix for a low credit score, the fact is that the only real credit repair comes over time by making on time payments and keeping your credit card balances well below their limits.
The good news is that you will probably be surprised at how quickly your credit score will start to climb once you begin to properly manage your accounts. Start today and before you know it, you’ll be on your way to the credit score that you want.
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When most people think of identity theft, they think about home, cars and credit cards being purchased or obtained using their name and credit information. While this is certainly a big part of what identity thieves do, a criminal sees many other uses for your identity, and some could even land YOU in jail.
At any given time, there are millions of illegal immigrants that are working in the United States using a stolen social security number. Many of these men and women will never try to open a credit card or in any other way financially harm the owner of that social security number. They are even paying taxes on what they earn so no harm, no foul, right?
Wrong. While it may seem like no one is suffering from this crime, the fact is that there are some situations where the correct owner HAS been harmed. There has been at least one report of someone applying for a job and then being turned down because someone already worked there with her social security number.
While a problem like this can eventually be straightened out, there is no quick fix. It can take hours and hours of time on the phone and trudging down to the social security office to try and prove that you are, in fact, who you say you are.
To add insult to injury, the government is often aware that someone is using your social security number illegally, but they do nothing to notify you of the problem. Instead, they continue to collect the tax revenue from those using stolen identities.
Of course, the chances of you being turned down for a job like the woman in the example above is slim. But that does not mean that there is no danger involved in someone using your social security number to work. If someone has established an identity using your information, it would be quite easy for them to make the leap to opening credit cards and taking other types of loans in your name.
It is no surprise that this happens all of the time. People have their credit destroyed and may never even know about it until they go to apply for a loan or attempt to buy a house. Sadly, some of the victims are children.
Identity thieves love to steal the social security numbers of children because it is unlikely that they will be found out for many years. However, when that child does turn 18 and try to apply for his first credit card, he may be greeted by a very unpleasant surprise.
Many young adult victims have pulled their credit report for the very first time only to find it littered with late payments, collections and judgments. It can take months or even years to get everything straightened out.
While the above consequences of identity theft are frustrating and costly, they are not the scariest possibility. Imagine being pulled over for a minor traffic infraction. After the police officer runs your information, he comes back to the car and asks you to step out of the car.
You step outside and are informed that you are under arrest for an outstanding warrant. Because your children are with you, they have to witness you being put in handcuffs and placed in the back of a police car.
Of course, you will be protesting the entire time that they have the wrong person, but law enforcement professionals hear that all the time. It could take days in order to be able to have the original arrest documents pulled to prove that you were, in fact, the victim of identity theft and had nothing to do with the crime that was committed.
While your name will likely, eventually, be cleared, that is of little consolation to you or to your children for having been put through the ordeal.
Sadly, this happens more often that some people realize. If an illegal immigrant is working using your social security number, there is nothing to stop him from using your information should he have a run in with the law.
As you can see, what some may look at as a victimless crime can, in fact, have horrible consequences for the victim.
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As people seek for ways to repair their damaged credit, many will be surprised to learn that the help they need may come directly from their creditors. Because there has been such an increase in the number of people who are having trouble making their payments, many creditors, including credit card companies and mortgage lenders, are taking matters into their own hands when it comes to helping their customers get back on the right track.
Having late mortgage payments is a huge hit on your credit report. Unfortunately for many homeowners, once you fall behind one payment, it is difficult to catch up again. That means that even though you are making a payment each month, that payment is for the previous month. That results in your credit report showing a late payment month after month.
Your mortgage company may be willing to work with you in order to fix this problem. They may set up arrangements where you pay a little extra each month until you have made up the missed payment. In some cases, the mortgage company may even be willing to reset your mortgage, which will give you a fresh start when it comes to making your payments.
Bringing your mortgage payments up to date can do more for credit repair than many other changes. Of course, bringing your payments current will not delete the record of late payments made in the past. In rare cases, a mortgage company may be willing to remove some of the late payments. They are under no obligation to do so, but may do it as a courtesy.
Credit card companies are also stepping up to the plate when it comes to helping their customers get their credit back on track. Many are offering payment arrangements that include not reporting the account as late to the credit bureaus. While setting up special payment arrangements for customers who have fallen behind is not anything new, offering to stop the negative reporting is something that was not typically offered in the past.
Not all credit card companies are making such offers, and not all customers will qualify, but it is something that some of the companies are doing to help their customers through difficult financial times.
When you think of credit repair, you are probably not thinking in terms of the above example. The fact is, however, that if you can work directly with your creditors, that is one of your best chances of actually being able to make a difference about what appears on your credit report.
Because loan agencies are now more willing than ever to help their customers, the need to seek credit repair in other places may not even be necessary. While some consumers think that credit repair agencies can wipe factual negative information from their credit report that is not the case.
However, the creditor who reported the negative information does have the power to ask that it be removed. That is why working directly with the creditor may be the best way of all to seek credit repair.
As is always the case when discussing credit repair, prevention is better than any possible cure. If you see yourself getting into financial difficulty, begin contacting your creditors right away.
The sooner that you notify them that you may be having trouble making the payments, the more options that they will have to be able to help you.
While some lenders and credit card companies may be willing to remove some negative information from your report, if you can begin working with them before the information is ever reported that is far better.
There are more lenders that are willing to work with you then there are those that are willing to remove negative information once it has been reported. Contact your creditors at the first sign of trouble.
While there are many possible options for credit repair, the best avenue is to work directly with the creditors. If you are honest about your situation and are willing to do your best to make payments, many creditors will be able to work with you not only to get your debt paid, but to preserve your credit as well.
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Identity theft is an extremely fast growing crime. A few decades ago, there were only a handful of such cases reported each year. In one recent year, there were nearly 700,000 reported cases of identity theft.
Some people think that the biggest loss to those who suffer from ID theft is what they lose financially. They fail to consider the loss of time and reputation that goes along with it. It can take years to fully restore your financial reputation after suffering an ID theft.
It is so much more than someone just using your credit cards. The person who steals your identity may open new loans and credit cards, apply for jobs and even buy houses and cars. Sometimes such activity goes undetected for years.
Typically it is discovered when the victim tries to buy a home or car and is turned down because their personal credit has been destroyed. Another even scarier thought is that sometimes the thief uses the stolen identity when they have run-ins with the law.
Innocent people have been arrested because there were warrants for their arrest caused by the actions of the person who stole their identity. The onus will be on you to prove you were not the one who committed the crime.
While there are simple steps that you can take to make you less of a target for identity theft, it is important to realize that criminals are usually one step ahead of the game. They have more inventive ways to steal your identity and even some people who have taken all of the suggested precautions have become victims.
The cost of recovering from ID theft can be in the thousands of dollars, and that does not include the time that you lost trying to repair your credit and prove that actions taken by the criminal were not taken by you.
It is a frustrating process made even more maddening by the amount of proof that you must often find a way to furnish in order for someone to believe you. There are, however, ways that you can truly minimize your risk and the headaches should you become a victim.
Consider locking your credit report. When you lock your credit report that means that no one – including you – can access your report for any reason. This action prevents an identity thief from opening any new credit card accounts or making any type of purchases in your name.
However, depending the amount of your personal information that the thief has, he could still use your identity in other ways such as to obtain employment or during encounters with police.
There are identity theft prevention services that you can enroll in. There is a small monthly fee, which varies based on the provider that you choose. The fee includes locking your credit report and monitoring for any unusual activity.
Most also include a benefit that states that if your identity is stolen that they will handle all of the leg work needed to restore your good name. Also, there is usually a dollar amount that you will be reimbursed for any money that you lost as a result of the identity theft.
Here are some other steps that you can take to help ensure that you do not become a victim of identity theft.
- Monitor Your Accounts – Pay attention to your bank account balances and credit card statements. Immediately notify the proper people should you see any unusual activity.
- Go Paperless – Often, identity thieves will steal your mail or rummage through your trash as a way to collect information that they need to steal your identity. Consider canceling all paper bills and statements and instead use electronic versions of these documents.
- Credit Monitoring – Sign up for a service that alerts you anytime there is activity on your credit report. For less than $10 per month, you will be notified via email anytime someone applies for an account or that there is a change in balance on any of your existing accounts.
AS mentioned above, even with the best preventive measures in place, an identity thief can still break through the barriers. By monitoring your financial information, you will at least be able to catch him as soon as he starts which will minimize the amount of damage an identity thief is able to do to your good name.
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