Best Ways to Prevent Identity Theft

ID theft is the quickest growing part of crime in the United States. With 79 million identities being lost in the last 12 months, you must do what you can to ensure that you do not become identity theft's next victim.

There are a few steps that you can take to reduce the probability of becoming a victim of identity theft. One of the simplest things to do is to use your common sense. Protect your important personal info and do not give it to anybody unless there is a good reason to do so.

You need to check your credit bureau report on a regular basis to ensure that there hasn’t been any unauthorized use of your credit. If you are aware of what should be on your credit bureau report, then it is simple to tell if there has been any criminal activity with your personal information.

You should be using identity theft fraud protection to reduce your exposure to the possibility of your identity being stolen. Identity theft protection is a speciality of a few trustworthy companies. ID theft protection services use a credit report fraud alert to alert you whenever anyone tries to open up credit using your personal information.

These identity theft services also reduce the amount of junk mail you receive, including offers of new credit. Since mail theft is one way criminals steal your identity, this reduces the chance criminals can use mail to steal your identity.

Also, ID theft solutions monitor the black market and online activity for any criminal use or trading of your valuable information. Criminals typically will trade your valuable information, such as your social security number and name and address, which is then used to steal your identity.

The average ID theft victim spends hundreds of hours and thousand of dollars to repair their credit. By using an identity theft prevention company, you are doing what you can to make sure you do not become an ID theft victim. To find out more about these solutions, you can read about Trusted ID.