Identity Theft

Identity theft, today, is one of the fastest growing crimes. It is a theft of an individual's personal identity information, done for committing frauds such as credit card frauds, utility frauds, bank frauds, government document frauds, loan frauds, and employment related frauds.

It has been reported that in the past 5 years there were more than 25 million identity theft victims. Moreover, these frauds annually costs over 50 billion dollars to the nations economy and consumers are the ones who borne some of this cost.

Furthermore, even if identity theft is discovered, the consumers suffer the negatives of the theft like high credit card charges and high interest rates on borrowings. Even then, one cannot explain the psychological effect of it on the consumers, as they now have to struggle to restore a good name for themselves

Preventive steps
Identity theft cannot be completely prevented by a person. Therefore, we have mentioned some of the steps that will help you in reducing your chances of being a victim of identity theft.

- To minimize the risk of your identity theft, carry your extra credit cards, social security card or passport, only when necessary. Always be alert about these documents whenever you carry them. do not give any information regarding your personal identity on the phone.

- Try to keep an eye on your mailbox. To minimize the chance of mail theft use lockable mailbox.

- Take a good care of your credit cards and even credit card receipts. Never throw them in the public trash.

- Always carry your wallet with you. Do not keep it unattended even at work or church.

- Whenever your bank or credit card companies send you courtesy checks, keep them in a secure place or destroy them immediately after closing the checking accounts.

- One of the steps of reducing identity theft is by not allowing your banks to send you your checks at home address.

- Cancel all your inactive accounts and put a limit on the number of credit cards. Read your credit card statements carefully and challenge all the mistakes.

- Always remember your passwords and PIN numbers.

- Notify the respected companies, in case you do not receive your billing statements.

In addition to identity theft and prevention, we also offer other services like instruction on reading and understanding credit reports, annually free credit reports, credit repair services, etc.