Free Identity Theft Protection
Identity Theft Prevention For Free
Identity theft is a growing problem around the world. In America, various crime statistics list the losses due to identity theft in the hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars. Fortunately, some simple tricks can help protect your identity for free.
While identity theft technically means that someone copies your whole identity, impersonating you with phony driver's licenses and Social Security cards, someone stealing just one credit card number or opening just one account in your name can be devastating to your credit. Fixing the error can take hundreds of hours and can even cost thousands of dollars depending upon the damage done. The best solution to identity theft and credit card theft is prevention.
Unfortunately, the credit card companies and banks aren't very interested in the prevention of identity theft. While theft and fraud cost them millions of dollars each year, they make far more money off of easy access to credit than they lose. That means you are responsible for protecting your identity.
The fastest and easiest way to help prevent identity theft is a paper shredder. Best of all, once you buy the shredder, helping protect your identity is free. That is smart financial advice that anyone can use.
Free Credit Card Fraud Protection
Use Paper Shredder to Stop Identity Thieves
While there are many ways for identity thieves to get your personal information, like all criminals and scammers, they like easy targets. If you happen to get caught up in a sophisticated identity theft ring's plan, there may not be much you can do. However, those are less common that run of the mill identity theft.
One of the easiest ways to get someone's private personal information is to take a few seconds to go through their trash. Whether the trash cans are convienently left out by the curb, or whether several people collect their personal info in the same dumpster, grabbing a copy of a cable bill gives the thief plenty of information. Even better is if the thief can grab a credit card application, helpfully pre-filled out by the bank that sent it to you. And, if you recycle, well, that just means that they don't even have to get their hands dirty.
With your name, address, and even an account number as a reference, your phone number is just a click away on the Internet, and your Social Security number is easy enough to get from a number of places.
Your only defense is to keep them from getting any of this information in the first place. Using a paper shredder to destroy anything with your name and address on it makes your garbage virtually worthless to identity thieves who will just move on to an easier target most of the time.
Don't worry about buying a fancy shredder with tons of features. While a cross-cut shredder does provide more secure destruction, almost no one is going to bother putting the pieces back together. If the thieves were willing to work that hard, there are better ways to make money.
Don't get suckered into buying special oil for your paper shredder either. Most household shredders say right in the instructions that common vegetable oil is all you need.
Start protecting your identity right away.