A Thief is Monitoring Your Identity. Are You?
Stop Identity Theft with the Right Tools!
You may have been a victim of identity theft and not even know it. This often undetectable crime occurs when a person steals your personal information for financial gain. With personal information like your social insurance number, credit card info, internet password, date of birth or your address, criminals can open bank accounts, reroute your mail, rent an apartment and fraudulently apply for credit, all in your name. You may not know somebody has been using your identity until you are turned down for a loan or rejected in a job interview due to a bad credit rating you didn't know you had. And the longer it takes to detect fradulent activity, the higher the cost is for you to correct it.
What are the consequences? Well, besides leaving you feeling vulnerable and angry, you may have to spend a couple hundred dollars and the same amount of hours cleaning up your good name. In extreme cases, you may even be wrongly arrested for fraud and sent to prison. To clear your name, you have to file reports to the police and government agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission, close bank accounts and replace credit cards, and contact the credit bureaus. Not only does this take a lot of work, but the process could last years. And guess what? Victims of identity theft are more likely to have it happen again. After all, your old stolen information is still out there.
Is there anybody out there who can help you? Yes!
Credit Monitoring Services - A Good Start
What if you had previously signed up with a credit
monitoring service before becoming a victim? Well, you would
then know immediately that your identity has been stolen, and
they will guide you through the steps to fix it.
However, you still have to do a lot of the phone
calls, write letters to banks and other financial institutions
alerting them to the fraud, and pay all the costs
associated with this (though most monitoring companies have
some form of insurance to help you.) A good service for this
is Identity Guard©.
ID Theft Protection Agencies
How about a service that not only
monitored your credit, but also took active steps to prevent fraud
in the first place? This type of service places alerts on your credit
report, so that financial and insurance companies must contact you before
they do anything with your file, such as create new financial accounts,
apply for mortgages and loans or issue new credit cards in your name.
Some companies even go the extra mile by constantly removing you from
junk mail and pre-approved credit card lists and marketing databases.
If you are a victim, instead
of spending all that
time on the phone, these services have at your disposal a team
of investigators, accounts, credit specialists and lawyers to
fight for you. The best protection agencies will insurance and guarantee
money you lose due to fraud. They exist
solely to protect your identity and resolve all your issues on your
behalf.
LifeLock
is one of the top companies for this type of service.
How Do I Prevent Credit Fraud?
Protect Your Identity - through some common-sense practices.
Check Your Credit Report - You are allowed one free credit report per credit reporting agency once a year. Or you can buy the information for a nominal fee.
Monitor your Reports - The first sign of theft is unauthorized activity on your credit reports. By monitoring your credit reports, you will be notified of suspicious activity within a day, rather than a few months down the road when creditors suddenly begin phoning you, or the police show up at your door.
According to the Better Business Bureau, nearly 10 million Americans are victims of identity theft every year, costing over $55 billion to victims and businesses. It also costs an individual about $600 to clear their name and repair their credit. If you've been a victim, you are at greater risk of being struck again. With an identity protection service, you can get on with your life and let highly-trained and trusted professionals monitor your report and be ready to instantly defend you.
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Protect your good name with LifeLock Identity Theft Protection,
and save 10% today! |
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Monitor your credit and identity with Identity Guard© |
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Protect your Identity with IDFreeze
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