Everybody is at risk from ID fraud, both as individuals and as businesses. Discovering that you have become a victim of ID Theft is not just a huge inconvenience, it can be emotionally damaging.
Unfortunately ID theft is still growing. The latest estimates from CIFAS, the UK’s Fraud Prevention Service, show that in in 2009, over 60,000 Britons fell victim to identity fraud – a 36% increase when compared with the same period in 2008!.
How do the fraudsters steal your identity?
Information about you or your business is valuable to identity thieves and organised criminal gangs. ID Theft can take place when crooks attain personal or confidential info about you or your company and then use it to open bank accounts and take out credit cards in your name and then use those accounts to purchase goods or take out loans.
Thieves can find your confidential information by:
- Unofficially redirecting your mail to another address.
- Stealing credit card statements and other important info from waste bins (aka as bin raiding). Use a Cross Cut Shredder to put a stop to this.
- Sending fake emails to fool you into supplying confidential information (Phishing)
How best to protect yourself against ID Fraud?
- Always be skeptical of people calling you claiming to be from your bank. Unfortunately, occasionally these banks do call you legitimately and will often ask you to confirm your Identity before proceeding (even though they telephoned you!) – this makes it hard to spot the difference between fraudsters and authentic callers. If in doubt the safest course of action is ask for their phone number and offer to call them back – then check out the phone number provided on the companies website.
- Don’t click on links in emails claiming to be from your bank, even if it looks to be genuine. Even if the email looks believable and is asking you to log in to your account for some reason, then always type the website name manually or by using a bookmark you have previously made to the site – never use the link in the email.
- Contact you bank if you discover that your statements have stopped arriving in the mail
- Most importantly, do not throw out any statements that contains details of your account numbers, nor any documentation that may contain clues to common security question answers.
If you need to dispose of such documents you should shred them first, preferably using a Fellowes Particle Cut Shredder as these provide a greater level of security.
Product listing
NOTE: to keep the site running smoothly, product data is only refreshed once every 10 minutes, approximately. Click on a product to see the most up-to-date data on the seller's page.
Related posts:
- How to Avoid the Toxic Friend
- Nine Steps to Securing Your Computer
- How to Grandparent an Adolescent
- What is Poaching?
- Tips For Moms of an Anorexic Or Bulimic Daughter
- All About Data Restoration
- How To Find Your Hat Size
- Just How Did That Hacker Beat Me?
- Photography Business Ideas
- Basic Computer Skills Knowledge For Beginners
Write a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.