It never ceases to amaze me how many people put their identity at risk every day, by not taking any basic precautions — simple identity theft protection measures that can help reduce or prevent identity theft risks.
Unfortunately, there are some things that are beyond your control — for instance, if your personal financial information is stolen from a retailer or a corporate database. But these data breaches rarely result in identity theft or fraud, and in the few cases that do, victims rarely end up paying anything. And regularly monitoring your credit report will help catching and eliminating this kind of risk anyway.
Recent studies conducted on the causes of identity theft show that most cases are of the low-tech or no-tech variety. Earlier this week, I discussed the story of a San Francisco creative consultant who lost $30,000 and went through “six months of hell” after an identity thief pilfered her personal mail box
This is an all-too-common story, where devastating identity theft and fraud can begin with the easiest of crimes.
The good news is that the most common crimes can be prevented because they’re usually crimes of opportunity. The thieves simply stumble across the victim or the opportunity rather than deliberately target them.
So what can you do to reduce the chance that an identity thief will stumble across you? Most importantly, you have to take an active role in protecting yourself. Zero liability rarely means what it says, and your bank or credit card won’t cover the real costs of an identity theft crime
In the San Francisco case, the victim estimated that the crime cost her $30,000 in lost earnings because time spent resolving the theft was time that could have been spent with her customers. And banks usually won’t make good on those losses.
Your bank won’t help you to protect your mail or the personal financial information like credit card statements, Social Security numbers or bank statements, you may neglect. It won’t help you keep an eye on your wallet or purse when you go shopping or go to work. And it won’t stop you from downloading spyware and keyloggers to your computer that can steal your account information and empty your bank account.
The bottom line is that you have to take responsibility for guarding against those identity theft risks that you do have some control over.
It’s also important to be vigilant, to the point of paranoia. There are identity thieves everywhere, so it’s important that you look at yourself like a thief would. Identify any and all behavior or habits that might make you vulnerable, then change those behaviors to create personal measures of identity theft protection.
That includes minding your mail and collecting it as quickly as possible each day, not falling for emails and phone calls that ask you to confirm your account or password, and not opening email attachments you’re not expecting — even if you recognize the name of the sender.