Fraud Identity Report
Do not carry your Social Security card in your wallet. There are steps you can take is to guard your Social Security Number, the universal doorway to all of your information. The average dollar loss per victim doubled over that of the year 2005. Of the two, the use of existing accounts is usually detected much earlier, often by the credit card company noticing a change in spending habits and contacting the victim, or upon receipt of the first bill with fraudulant charges, and is easier to clear up. Big companies like eBay and Paypal actively pursue these scam artists. How You Can Protect Yourself You can hardly read a publication or listen to the news these days without hearing something about the rise in identity fraud. Report any discrepancies immediately. Often statements have extra papers that have no meaningful information, or credit card companies send you unsolicted "checks" to charge to your credit card, all with your account number!! Shred it!! Needless to say, also shred any expired or cancelled credit cards -- or cut into very small pieces and deposit into multiple little bags with icky garbage before putting into the trash. Most offer free identity theft protection; some charge a small annual fee. Then send the suspected email to the company. Never give your social security number to anyone unless it is for a transaction at your request and you trust the institution requesting the information. A recent study by a prominent research firm recently announced that there were over 15 million American victims of identity fraud in the past year. Most experts agree that the highest percentage of identity fraud is still a person-to-person theft, such as an unscrupulous store clerk taking account information from a check or a credit card number from a store receipt, rather than from the rising use of the
