I have been finding info about avoiding Identity Theft in many different sources and I think these points do a great job of tightening up the laces so-to-speak to keep yourself out of trouble:
1. Get your Credit Report. A credit report can be obtained free, each calendar year, from all three credit bureaus (TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian) at http://www.annualcreditreport.com By employing credit report requests every quarter will give a significant leg up on noticing suspicious activity with any of your accounts. By law you are entitled to your own credit report (although not the FICO score, those sneaky companies) once per year at no charge to you.
2. Only carry what you need. When you go shopping, especially around holiday seasons, limit the credit cards you carry to only one or two.
3. Regularly refresh your pin codes. This is critical because MANY of us tend to pick one pin for all of our cards, on top of that when was the last time you changed your pin? I'm just as guilty as the rest but having a logical system of pin generation and trying to keep them "fresh" (no worries, only changing them once or twice a year is better than nothing!) will help you get complacent. Also, you can strengthen passwords and pins by making them at least six to eight characters and mixing numbers, letters, and symbols.
4. Stick with what you know and only use ATM machines that you are familiar with. Believe it or not there are a healthy amount of fraudulent ATM machines out there that exist only to electronically "scrape" your card's data!
5. Protect your computer before shopping online or downloading software through the internet. You should ensure you have SOME type of anti-virus software installed and make sure you keep the virus list up-to-date. One outstanding anti-spyware program that I use can be checked out here: http://www.superantispyware.com/index.html
6. Photocopy your credit cards and ID cards and keep the images in a SAFE place. Most "if this card is stolen, call this number..." are printed ON the card. If you loose it or the card is stolen you're up the creek without a paddle. By taking images of all your cards you will have not only the numbers, security codes, but also the 800 number to your card's fraud department.
I hope this helps!
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