Identity Theft Types

There are several different identity theft types. You’ll be more informed about identity theft by knowing the different strategies. Here are five tips on identity theft types.

Online Identity Theft Types

It can happen to a fake website asking for personal information to obtain credit online. Online banking is another place where identity theft happens when you enter your information into a fake bank site.

Fake Text Messages

Text messages are sent to people unaware of security risks asking them personal information. The fake text messages usually come from a big known corporation that the person is pretending to be from in order to gain your credit card number.

Friends

Your friends can gather your personal information easily when you leave them in the car to run into the gas station for a minute. Don’t ignore any red flags that pop up. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve known them.

Relatives

Be careful of anyone that has access to your credit report. Be cautious around anyone that helps you pay your bills each month such as a family caregiver. Any one of these individuals can steal your identity. It can be your ex spouse, grandma, grandpa, and granddaughter. Don’t overlook your daughter,son, son-in-law, daughter-in-law. Anyone that is relative can steal your identity.

Service Employees in Your Home

The maid can steal your information easily. Give her access to your house then she’ll be able to steal anything. Think about the people that enter your home.

Fugitives

People that are wanted by law enforcement will usually steal another persons identity. The fugitive won’t usually open up credit accounts since the person wants a new life in disguise as someone else.

New Life

Some people simply want a new life for a number of different reasons. A woman could use a new identity to escape her abuser. She knows that a new life with a new ID gives her a sense of security. She can start over without needing to worry about anything.

New Credit

The criminal that commits identity theft with the sole intention of obtaining new credit accounts is the worst kind. The reason why I say this is because it takes years to sort out this type of damage. Collectors will often find that the person used a bogus address to have the bills sent to in order to throw you off for months or even years depending upon how often you check your credit. The other thing is some credit accounts don’t show up as long as the bill is paid on time and not late.

Desperate People

Desperate people will often think nothing of taking a credit card to use to acquire something. They often will ditch the credit card often using it a few times without ever getting caught. Be careful of people who you notice looking around your purse or wallet. They may be gathering checking account information and credit card information.

Fake Legit Looking Checks

Professional criminals often know how to make a fake legit looking check using your account number. It is quit easy to do once you have mastered the skill.

Credit Card Swiper

Pro’s also know how to make a fake credit card swiper using your credit card number to take money out of an ATM before you notice it.

Criminals Can Be Employee From Inside Corporations

There have been criminals that steal identity information from working inside a company. They often get away with this behavior for a while. The company does know that most personal information is either revealed by an employee, used by an employee, or stolen.

Basic Steps to Reduce the Risk of Identity Theft

Identity theft is a real problem that can cause a lot of headaches. Identity thieves can ruin your credit and cause financial damage. It takes time to clean up your credit report, reversing false charges on your credit cards and get stolen money refunded to your bank accounts. Prevent the headaches of identity theft by living smart and reducing the chances of it happening in the first place.

The best way to reduce the risk of identity theft is to be careful with your personal information. Guard your social security number and your account numbers. Be careful who you reveal your information to. Indentity thieves use many tricks to con people into giving away their private information. Follow these 10 basic steps to reduce the risk of identity theft.

• Do not carry your social security card in your wallet. Instead, memorize your number.
• Do not carry your birth certificate in your wallet or purse. Keep it safely at home.
• Choose good passwords for your credit card, bank and loan accounts. A good password does not contain easy to guess information such as your birth date or your child’s name. Pick a password that does not contain any information that is easily linked to you.
• Do not give out personal identification information over the phone or Internet, unless you initiated the contact. Identify thieves commonly call people or use fake emails or websites pretending to be a bank, credit card or loan company, in an attempt to get the person to divulge sensitive identity information.
• Thieves commonly dig through a person’s trash to obtain sensitive information. Shred all mail that contains your personal identification information to prevent identity thieves from getting ahold of it.
• Check your bank, credit card and loan statements carefully each month to catch fraudulent activity. Immediately report fraudulent activity if you find it.
• Check your credit once a year. Every person is entitled to a free annual credit report from each of the credit agencies. By checking your credit report regularly, you can catch identity theft activity quicker. In addition to yearly free credit reports, you are entitled to additional free reports if you suspect fraudulent activity is taking place under your social security number. So, if you suspect identity theft is happening, you don’t need to wait a year to check your credit for free.
• Report stolen credit cards, identification cards, social security cards, bank checks and other sensitive information immediately.
• Install a firewall program on your computer. A firewall program blocks users from accessing your computer information remotely and stealing your person information.
• Install anti-virus and anti-spyware software on your computer. Some computer virus and spyware programs log information that you input into your computer and send the information over the Internet to identity thieves.

Following the above 10 tips will reduce your risks of identity theft significantly. Nothing you can do will guarantee that your credit is safe, however. If identity theft occurs, despite your safe practices, file a report with the police and contact the credit bureaus and your credit card, bank and loan companies to report the theft.

5 Ways on How identity theft is committed

People often wonder how identity theft is committed. People often don’t think about other people hearing them rattle off their social security number on the phone in a waiting room.

People don’t realize how private the social security numbers need to be protected so it doesn’t fall into the criminals hands. Here are five ways on how identity theft is committed without your knowledge.

#1 Your Moms Maiden Name

The criminal can open up credit accounts over the telephone with your mothers maiden name. It is one of the security questions asked which makes it easy to steal identity and obtain credit accounts.

#2 Your Social Security Number

You probably wonder how he got your Social Security Number? Think about all the places that you’ve revealed your Social Security number in the past. The criminal either stole it directly from you that implies someone you know, or indirectly from another source.

#3 Your Birth Certificate Information

The criminal either knows you directly or stole the information from an official source. Official sources are places such as Welfare, Drivers License Division, and Health Department. The criminal could of paid someone off from inside to get the information.

#4 Drivers License Number or State ID

The criminal either is someone that you know that at one time had access to your wallet or purse. The person could of been someone you don’t know that either was an employee of a company, or paid someone off. Employees are the number one people often suspected of Identify Theft in the drivers license division.

#5 Place of Employment

Your job is another place where you reveal social security number and drivers license number or state ID. Any number of employees can discover how identity theft is committed just to make your life miserable as a revenge tactic.

How identity theft is committed often takes skill and sneaky tactics to not get caught. Identity theft is often done to buy a new life in another state, a revenge tactic, and sometimes just to run from the law.

Identity theft happens more often than you think it does on a regular basis. It takes a long time to catch a criminal because they know how to cover their tracks.

The criminals can live underground using your information without you knowing as long as they stay smart about it.

Please remember the criminals that do identity theft are pro’s at it. They know exactly what they are doing when they steal your identity. They are often considered professionals in the black market.

Some victims of identity theft only have to deal with new ID’s being issued to the criminal. The other victims of identity theft spend forever trying to undo all the credit accounts the criminal opened.

The main ways how identity theft is committed are place of employment, social security number, mothers maiden name, and birth certificate information. It also happens with your drivers license information being stolen or sold for money from a inside employee.

The three ways that a criminal often gets caught is when you filed a identity theft alert, the criminal has overlapping IDs in the same state as you, and the criminal gives your ID to police assuming you have no warrants when you really do have warrants.

How can thieves steal you identity?

Identity theft is an ancient practice. With a steady growth of population globally and technology advances, the practice has continued to thrive. People steal identities either as a tool to defame others or just to steal from them. Most identity thefts that have been recorded were targeted at stealing money and other valuables from the victims. Whereas there are those thieves that target specific people, most identity thefts are random and consequently victims are drawn from all walks of life. Maybe you have never heard about identity theft and you are wondering how and why it happens. When identity thieves access your confidential information they are able impersonate you. They can apply for credit cards, loans, driving licenses, etc using your identification information. Your Social Security Number can be used by the thieves to apply for jobs. You might not learn of such occurrences until somebody contacts you requesting for payments for services you did not use or a fraud that you supposedly committed. There are many methods that identity thieves can use to steal your identity but we shall look at the most prominent methods.

Dustbins

Many of us trash old bills, notebooks, letters, etc. These documents can be ideal points of entry for identity thieves. While you are careless about what information you included in the old diary, someone else might find it helpful because it bearers your driving license number, Social Security Number, Credit Cards Number, etc. Armed with these details, a thieve can apply for a job or a credit card using your name and leave the debt behind for you to service. It is important to go through all documents you intend to trash and if possible it is advisable to destroy them instead of leaving them in usable formats.

Phishing

Phishing is a modern method of stealing identities. This method utilizes emails, junk emails, and pop ups on users browsers. Identity thieves send junk messages that sometimes require recipients to confirm such details as credit card information. Nowadays many people know the tricks and do not reply to such emails. However there are new internet users that submit their details whenever they are prompted to do so. Online identity thieves have been inventing new ways of stealing identities and it is advisable that you don’t submit personal information to any websites or emails that you are not sure about.

Changing Address

Thieves can use bank employees or other payment processing companies to gain access to your mails. They can then change the contact details so that they receive your bank statements, bills and other crucial documents without your knowledge. The information borne by these documents can be used to access your bank accounts and other valuables. It is important to note inconsistencies in mail deliveries and to act promptly when you notice any tampered, missing or delays mails. This way you can correct identity theft before major damages are made.

Stealing

Identity thieves can access your personal documents and identifications by forcefully taking them from you. Thieves can also steal documents from companies offices or banks which they can later use to steal from you. This form of identity stealing is the most difficult to manage but everyone should avoid exposing themselves to possible thieve risks. Regular personal finances audits is also a good way of eliminating possible damages caused by identity thieves.

Things you must know about identity theft

Identity theft occurs when someone assumes someone else’s identity by illegally using his or her confidential information, such as social-security, bank-account, or credit-card number. Identity thieves benefit financially by removing funds from their victims’ bank accounts, taking out mortgages or other loan obligations in their victims’ names, and obtaining credit cards in their victims’ names and using them to run up large debts. If identity thieves cover their tracks by having bills and other mail sent to addresses they control, the victim will not be aware of the theft until considerable damage has occurred. Usually, victims can eventually prove that they are not responsible for the debts or missing funds, but they may spend significant time and money restoring their credit ratings and reestablishing their financial reputations.

No one is immune from identity theft. One case involved a three-week-old infant, and the dead are frequent targets of identity-theft plots. Nor are the victims exclusively individuals. Entire companies have been victimized by identity thieves. Those who study the problem cite many factors for the rapid rise of the crime: the growth of the Internet; the emergence of digital finance; the commonplace nature of consumer credit and the weak regulations governing the credit industry; and inadequate communication between local, national, and international law-enforcement agencies.

The jargon listed below, used by both criminals and law-enforcement authorities, helps explain how identity thieves go about their business.

Dumpster diving

Searching garbage cans, trash bins, and city dumps to find scraps of confidential information such as canceled checks, credit-card statements, bank documents, tax returns, discarded applications for preapproved credit cards, or any records that contain social-security numbers, names, addresses, telephone numbers, and other data that can be used to assume an identity.

Phishing (pronounced “fishing”)

Pretending to be a legitimate company and sending e-mails requesting the recipient to respond or to submit information on a Web page. Phishers make their e-mails and Web sites look authentic by including familiar logos and Internet links that appear to be the legitimate ones of the company they are using as bait. Literally millions of phishing e-mails are sent out each month, and many unsuspecting recipients respond, resulting in huge monetary losses.

Spoofing

Making an e-mail message look as if someone else has sent it. E-mail spoofers often claim to be computer-system administrators requesting the unsuspecting victims to change their user ID (identification) and password to a specific value, or pretending to be an organization’s management requesting a copy of password files or other sensitive information.

Hacking

Breaking into computer systems by using known computer-program flaws or by finding poorly controlled systems. Hackers attack computers all over the world; in 1998 a Russian hacker broke into Citibank’s computer in the United States and stole $12 million dollars from customer accounts.

Social engineering

Tricking employees of a company into disclosing confidential information. Common social-engineering tricks include pretending to be an employee who has forgotten a password, or to be from network security and needing a password to test the system, or assuming the role of a buyer or a salesperson to obtain the confidential information.

Key logging

Using hidden computer software to record computer activity, such as a user’s keystrokes, e-mails sent and received, and Web sites visited. Whereas parents may employ such software to check on their children’s computer usage and businesses use it to monitor employee activity, identity thieves utilize the software to garner confidential information and have it sent to them by e-mail.

Impersonation

Using someone else’s user ID and password to access a system. By doing so the thief is able to enjoy the same privileges as the person being impersonated.

Password cracking

Penetrating a computer-system’s defenses, stealing the password file, and using the passwords to access system programs, files, and data.

Packet sniffing

Using programs that capture data from information packets as they travel over the Internet or company networks. Captured data is sifted to find confidential information.

Eavesdropping

Listening to private communications or transmissions of data on unprotected communications lines. The most common way to intercept signals is by wiretapping.

Authorities suggest a number of ways to prevent identity theft and to minimize its consequences should it occur. Computer users are advised to be skeptical of all requests for information—legitimate companies do not typically ask for sensitive personal information via e-mail. Before entering personal or financial information on any site, users are told to check that it is a “secure” site by looking for the padlock symbol on the bottom of most Web browsers. Users are also advised to make sure that their passwords contain a combination of letters and numbers so that they cannot be easily guessed, and are not the same for every account. In addition, people should carefully check their monthly bank and credit-card statements for suspicious items and they should regularly review accounts online between statements. Confidential documents should be shredded to prevent dumpster diving. Firewalls and computer virus–protection software should be used to make a computer secure. Security patches released by vendors to correct software flaws should be installed as soon as they are available. Online retailers should be checked before making a purchase. Consumers should not give any retailers permission to store their confidential information, as the databases maintained by retailers may be vulnerable to theft.