Tips on Preventing Identity Theft

You should keep as close an eye on your children’s personal information as yours. 

This is especially true in regards to people in your community. Cyber criminals would have a hard time find your child’s social security number. People you deal with regularly would have easier access to getting this information. Cleaning crews and employees of medical facilities or school systems would have easy access to these records. Preventing identity theft from affecting a minor child’s future is highly recommended.

One tip on preventing identity theft that comes to mind involves your vehicle. 

When taking you car in for service of any kind, it could be very important to remove and all paperwork or other personal information that could be found by a would be identity thief. Not all crimes are committed after a pre-planned strategy. Leaving temptation lying about provides an opportunity for a momentary lapse in judgment. Once you are a victim of identity theft, restoring your life is not only hard but also very traumatic.

Having mail delivered to your home is very convenient. 

It also provides many opportunities for you to become a victim. Preventing identity theft might be made easier with no personal or sensitive information hanging out in a street side mailbox. Maybe it is time to change your mailing address to a post office box. Many shipping stores have mailboxes for rent if your local post office is not handy or out of space to rent.

Mail delivered to your office should not be left out at the curb over the weekend. 

Some professionals have a lot of personal mail sent to their office. Businesses can also fall victim to forms of identity theft crimes. Preventing identity theft via your weekend or vacation mail delivery could be hampered by an order placed with you carrier to hold delivery until the next business day.

Don’t go away and leave your house unlocked. 

If you kids need a way to get in should they beat you home from school or activities don’t leave a door unlocked. Instead give them a key or provide another way for the to gain entry that leaves the house locked until they arrive. If they are old enough to spend a few minutes without your attendance, then they are old enough to operate a touch pad locking system for perhaps your electronic garage door.

Choosing strong passwords and pins are wise steps in preventing identity theft. 

Think of a sentence that is easy to remember and create a code from it of different case letters, numbers and symbols. “Good cheese is great on pizza.” As an example of how one could code this you could use “GudChZzGr8onPizA”. Or “Don’t look at me like as one of you!” could be coded as D.Lk@mee#1aU.

Pin numbers are always difficult to remember. 

Use the number keys on your phone a word you will be quick to remember. Like your favorite song might be “Tiny Dancer” a short pin could be Tiny or “8469”. A 5-digit pin you could use “326237” which is Dancer when dialed. For a longer pin, just run them all together. Don’t use just numbers for Internet passwords, but you could throw in some * or # symbols easily from your phone keys.