Personal Finance

Identity Theft

Identity theft affects nearly ten million American consumers each and every year. Those consumers affected by identity theft, on average, spend a thousand dollars out of their own pocket and two hundred hours of their time to bring the theft and its ramifications to their credit scores to a conclusion. The best way to keep the effects of identity theft from costing you time and money is to avoid phishing scams from the start and keep your identity safe.

Identity theft occurs when a thief gets a hold of your personal information. Often this can be as little as learning your social security number and date of birth. There are many types of scams out there that thieves will use to learn your information. These scams are commonly called 'phishing' since the thief is tossing his lure out there, phishing around, and hoping to reel you in.

Phishing scams usually start with an email in your inbox. It might look just like an email from your bank or credit card lender. Usually it warns you of some kind of strange account activity, or tells you that your account is about to be canceled because your information is out of date and needs to be verified. To verify your account, the email will tell you, all you have to do is click the link it supplies and re-enter your account number and password. The site you supply your information to probably really does look exactly like the true webpage of your bank. However this spoof website is owned by a thief and once you type in your account number and password he has all the information he needs to open credit cards in your name, some people have even discovered identity thieves have bought cars and houses under their names!

Other scams are even sneakier. Maybe an email passed around your office that has al ink to a funny video or humorous website. When you download the video you don't realize that you are also downloading a virus called a Trojan. Different Trojans do various things. Some track what websites you visit and even what passwords you use to access those websites. Others act as a backdoor that thieves can use to get into your computer and send spam emails and phishing emails from your accounts.

To avoid identity theft, you need to be careful about what websites you enter your personal information on. If you receive an email that seems to be from your bank or lender, close it and go to your lenders website without clicking on the email link. That is the only way to know for sure that you are on their legitimate webpage. You should never give anyone your passwords or account information, even if they really do seem to be contacting you through your bank. Legitimate banks and lenders don't ask you for your computer passwords or personal information.