Identity theft can take many forms and is prevalent in our society today. As with most fraud, awareness and education are keys to lessening the impact.
Identity theft is when someone obtains your personal identifying information and uses it for illegal activity, usually for financial gain. There are some basic steps you can take to secure your information; but first, let’s look at what identity theft looks like.
Identity theft can look very different from case to case, for example:
- Your name and address can be used to sign up for services.
- Your name, Social Security number and date of birth may be used to apply for credit in your name.
- You may receive denial letters from financial institutions or credit card providers when you never applied for an account or loan.
- Your common personal information such as family details or personal preferences may be used to impersonate you and fraudulently access your true accounts.
- Your address, phone number or email can be changed without your permission.
- You may stop getting mail that you usually receive, such as credit card statements or bank statements.
You can take many steps to protect you and your information from this theft.
- Place a freeze and/or comment on your credit report to prevent unauthorized use of your Social Security number for credit.
- Use strong passwords and multi-factor authentication.
- Change your passwords frequently.
- Exercise caution on public forums where you share personal information.
- Regularly review your credit report for unauthorized tradelines or excessive inquiries.
- Review your credit union statements and other financial statements regularly.
- Do not answer calls, texts, emails or social media messages from numbers or people you do not know.
- Do not share your information like your bank account number, Social Security number or date of birth.
- Collect your mail every day and do not place outgoing mail in your mailbox until close to mail pickup time.
- Consider your activity when using a public Wi-Fi, such as accessing online banking accounts.
- Stop pre-approved credit offers (optoutprescreen.com is a helpful resource).
- Stop unwanted phone calls by registering with the National Do Not Call Registry (DoNotCall.gov)
It is a long list of steps you can take and there are always other ways to protect yourself. Be aware of how identity thieves target victims. Consider examples of how they steal data. Individuals will steal wallets or purses directly from victims. They also steal data by adding cameras or skimmers on ATM machines, cash registers or fuel pumps. They will steal information while you are on a public Wi-Fi. They take partial identity information they have obtained and combine that with information about you on public social media websites so they can get more or even take over your accounts.
In 2024, there were multiple data breaches reported by larger companies, including the National Public Data, Ticketmaster, Change Healthcare, AT&T to name a few. These breaches exposed billions of records containing sensitive personal information. If you or someone you know has been a victim, the government has an excellent resource to walk you through all of the steps to recover at identitytheft.gov.
Being proactive will help prevent becoming a victim. Please continue to learn more about how to protect yourself by visiting these government websites with more information.