A Few Tips to Help Prevent Identity Theft

They say, ‘prevention is better than cure’. The best way to take care of a problem is to ensure that it does not happen in the first place. There are many effective preventive identify theft tips that if applied diligently will save you a lot of trouble in the long run. However, it is not sufficient that you know how to prevent it; you should apply all efforts in endeavoring that it is applied wherever necessary and there is constant follow up. Alertness is the key to prevention of identity theft. You should actually be aware of the exact position of all your credit accounts. This will enable you to notice any discrepancy as and when it occurs, thus catching and stopping the fraud in time, before any real harm is done. The beauty of this preventive identify theft tip is that there is a good possibility to catch the thief at it, since he or she would not dream that they would be discovered so early. Some Important Preventive Identify Theft Tips 1. The most common mistake that people do is that they carry their social security number in their wallet or purse on a daily basis to an from work and other places. You should never carry the social security number with you; you should rather memorize it. 2. When you are going to work carry only one of your credit cards with you. Hence, if your purse is stolen you would not have the headache to inform all the credit card providers of the theft. 3. One very important preventive identify theft tip is to ensure that your laptop does not carry sensitive information about yourself – especially about your finances. People usually feed the computer their passwords and program it to remember these automatically. Imagine the disaster if this laptop fall into the hands of the wrong people! 4. Never ever give any financial information over the phone. It does not matter if the caller says they are from your bank, of police, or anywhere. You are entitled to your security and unless you are convinced that the query is from a genuine party, do not divulge anything. Even the bank should never ask you your password! In case something like this happens, choose to give the information in person to the bank, rather than over phone or email. These are some of the preventive identify theft tips that you could observe. The best thing is to stay alert all the time.

Search Records for Information on Identity Theft

Although bank and credit card companies have departments which investigate indicators of fraud, the best way to obtain information on identity theft is through your own diligence. No one cares more. . .

April 15, 2005: Credit Card data theft at Polo Ralph Lauren
Data apparently stolen from the popular clothing retailer Polo Ralph Lauren Inc. is forcing banks and credit card issuers to notify thousands of consumers that their credit-card information may have been exposed.

February 03, 2006: Former Employee Exposes Personal Information of 19,000 Honeywell Workers
Honeywell International reported that Howard Nugent, a former computer systems analyst in the company's Phoenix office is involved in a leak of personal information about 19,000 current and former employees.

June 18, 2005: 150,000 at University of Hawaii at Risk of Identity Theft
University of Hawaii officials have urged about 150,000 students, faculty, staff and library patrons at any of the 10 UH campuses between 1999 and 2003 to take precautions against identity theft.

Identity Theft News at 01-29-2010, 10:05

December 09, 2005: Personal Information Exposed at Idaho State University
Personal information of thousands of students and employees from the Idaho State University has been compromised.