Pretty woman walking down the street, pretty woman… then suddenly , a man seizes her hand bag. The woman shouts and begs for help, but the man runs as fast as he could until the woman does not even have a view of the man’s shadow….
Would you like this thing to happen? Of course not. Everybody wants to preserve their property and their money because these are fruits of their hard work. Stealing one’s property is a violation of the law, similar to stealing your personal identity.
Sometimes, it is more acceptable although it is also a crime when somebody steals your property. The worse thing happens when it is already your privacy or the personal information that is taken away from you by thieves.
Identity theft is a threat against your person. It reveals everything about you to another person who will use it illicitly. Knowing all the information about yourself will allow him to make transactions with other people using your identity. You will lose money!
However, do not worry too much about identity theft because there are several ways for you to prevent you from being a victim of identity theft. If only you will strictly follow these, you will be guaranteed with the security of your identity.
1. Always securely keep your things in proper places. – This is the basic thing that you should do. Never allow anybody to fix your wallet where your identification cards, bank accounts and other personal information are placed. Avoid trusting so much even to the closest person to you. Study shows that almost 26 percent of the cases in identity theft, the victims knew who the perpetrators are.
2. Burn all the receipts, personal applications, bank statement and any other kind of forms before you discard them. This will help you to protect your financial data and status.
3. Never give personal information instantly over the phone. Make sure that the person calling reveals to you his real purpose for calling. But it is not still an assurance, it is better if you will see them personally before you give out information about yourself to know the real purpose.
4. Bring the ID that you needed most for a particular transaction. Leave it to your house, if you do not need it at all. This is also one way of protecting yourself from identity theft.
5. Usually, when you make a bank transaction such as depositing or withdrawing, you are to fill up a form. It is better if you only write the last four4 digit of your bank account number. The teller already knows the proper thing that they are suppose to do.
6. Surf in the net and know the latest information about online identity theft. You also have a big concern about this since sometimes you are making transactions through computers . Web spoofing is also stealing one’s website identity. You don’t know if somebody already knows your financial account number by imitating the website where your e-mail account is located.
7. Take some precautions when it comes to your credit and debit cards. Always keep your credit cards in a secure place. When using it in paying the stuffs that you shop, make sure that you give it properly and get it immediately to the cashier because you can be distracted by the person next to you in line.
8. Secure your ATM cards as well. When you withdraw from your ATM account, secure the card properly. Prevent yourself from being a victim of skimming. This is the process where the machine is able to get the details of your transaction.
Sad to say but everyday there are about thousands of people who become victims of identity theft. Sometimes, other people do not have any idea about this kind of crime. It is high time that you should get yourself be aware about this before it is too late.
