Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in the United States. Over 10 million people a year are victimized, with the combined effect of costing billions of dollars. But there are services to aid in the fight against identity theft. And for a small monthly fee, Lifelock is one example of that sort of protection.

Lifelock provides a long list of services to the consumer. It sets up a fraud alert with your creditors to let you know when unauthorized activities may be taking place. They also greatly reduce your junk mail by removing you from all pre-approved credit card lists. Obtaining these pre-approved credit applications are just one way thieves can hijack your good credit. They also provide you with free credit reports - one more way you can stay on top of your credit history.

Losing a wallet can be not only traumatizing but a major hassle as far as contacting your bank and credit card companies. Lifelock will help guide you through that process with their WalletLock service. They can also help you replace your checkbook, drivers license, social security card, and even traveler’s checks at no extra charge. Lifelock’s identity monitoring package makes sure you know when a criminal website is selling your personal information.

Their eRecon alerts you immediately if any activity of that kind is found. Their TrueAddress Program notifies you if they detect any new address information so you can be sure the only addresses associated with your credit are the ones you approve.

Finally, Lifelock promises to do everything they can to restore your good credit in the event your credit is breached. They’ll spend up to one million dollars if that’s what it takes to restore your good name. For such a small payment a month it makes sense to have a service like Lifelock behind you in this world of identity thieves. It’s insurance AND assurance for your healthy credit.

LifeLock is the only Identity Theft Prevention Solution backed by a one-million dollar guarantee!

Click here to get a 10% discount.

As the fastest growing crime in the USA, identity theft is sure to affect you or someone you know. Once you’re a victim, you’re left with a nightmare to fix and, in the eyes of the credit reporting agencies and financial institutions, are often guilty until proven innocent. In order to get your life back after identity theft has stolen it, there are many steps you have to take. Here are a few to get you started on the road to recovery.

One step you need to take after identity theft is to notify all of your financial institutions. You’ll need to put a freeze on any and all activity on your checking and savings accounts, cancel all of your credit cards or have new cards with new numbers issued to you, and check your account statements for any fraudulent charges and withdraws. You’ll have to work with your financial institutions to get your monies back, your accounts corrected and up and running again. Most financial institutions have policies for identity theft, so if you’re able to prove the monies were stolen, most will be returned to you over time.

Another step toward recovering your identity is to contact the Social Security Office and your local drivers licensing office to make sure that those aspects of your identity are safe. If you find that the identity thief got copies of your drivers license and Social Security card issued to them, you’ll need to have those nullified and apply for a new Social Security number and drivers license number. This step is very important as they ARE your identity in the eyes of the law.

Finally, a step you can take to help repair your credit after an identity theft crime, is to contact all four of the credit reporting agencies and get copies of your credit report from each. You’ll need to see what damage the thief has truly done to your credit and begin the repair process with each agency. Each agency has their own rules on reporting and fixing mistakes on your credit report, and they’re notorious for making it difficult for the individual to fix.

It may take years before your credit report is where it should be, but its unfortunately something you must take care of yourself. If you follow these steps, you’ll be well on your way to recovering your credit and no longer being a victim.

If you have ever been a victim of identity theft, you know how traumatic and stressful it is dealing with repercussions. Your credit score will surly be affected, and you could be dealing with it for years, and perhaps even facing litigation as a result of your identity being used illegally. This is why it is very important to not only protect your identity, but to also identify the major ways that your identity can be stolen.

In this article, I will briefly discuss what you can do to prevent this from happening to you. It is simple and straight forward. The first way it is possible to steal your identity is dumpster diving. Literally, all a thief has to do is wait until you put your trash out and go through it. A lot of people leave things such as credit card bills, old check books, or other personal identifying things that could be used against you. Once the thief has found your information, they can use it to open new credit card accounts, checking counts, or to buy things on credit using your information. This is very serious because by the time that you realize that your information is being used, it is usually too late.

Another way that your identity might be stolen is by obtaining your mail. Skipping the dumpster diving and going right to the source, thief’s sometimes just boldly steal your mail right out of your mailbox. Bank statements and credit card bills give them instant access to all the information they need to establish things in your name. You would be surprised how many things come in the mail that have very personal information that could be used easily against you. All a thief needs is your address, your date of birth, your name and your social security numbers.

The two easiest ways to prevent this is very simple. All you have to do is buy a shredder, which is very inexpensive now a days. Shred all personal documents before you throw them in the garbage. Also, to prevent mail theft, either get a lockable mailbox or rent a PO Box from the post office, which is inexpensive as well.

There are several different ways your identity can be stolen. Remember to always pay attention to anything that has your information on it, otherwise you could be next in identity theft. Here are just two ways, though important, your identity can be stolen.

The first way I’m going to inform you about is very, very important. We all throw away our trash not expecting someone to go digging through it, so we may end up throwing something away that contains very important information, such as your birth-date, a credit card number, you full name, your mother’s maiden name, or your social security number, which can all be used to steal your identity. A thief can find this information, as well as possibly a credit card application in your name, and then have that credit card mailed to their address. Now, we know that a store must have an identification to prove that the purchaser is the person using the credit card, but many places will still overlook this simple procedure. A thief can easily just slip over the card and purchase the product. If a person asks for an I.D. the thief can just say they don’t have it, get the card back, and move on to the next store. More importantly, the thief can easily use your credit card online, where they are in no danger of being asked for identification. Always make sure you know what you’re throwing away, and avoid placing important information in your trash.

Another type of identity theft is throw phishing on your email. Never fill out a piece any credit card forms that you receive throw your email. You never know if someone has sent you a fake form. When you fill out this form with all the vital information mentioned in the last paragraph, you send it back to an email address. The problem is that that email address can be a fake one, made by someone trying to steal your identity, and now you’re vital information has ended up in the hands of someone who does not intend to use it in the way you were expecting. Just make sure you always know where your vital information is.

In this age of information the world is full of scams to gather data and use it against you. There are a few common tactics that are used to gather the information used by the unscrupulous to steal your identity. Some involve your participation some are done without your knowledge. Let’s take a look at a few.

Everyone by now has heard of the e-mails sent out by the Nigerian princess or “Government Official” promising to deposit the proceeds of a bank draft into your account and split the money, all you need to do is send them your bank account number. While this would seem to be an obvious fraud the technique of sending an email to the unsuspecting, known as phishing still exists. Also known as “spoofing” the bad guys have gotten much more sophisticated. Rather than rescuing a damsel in distress now the letter comes in the form of an official looking correspondence from a trusted friend or web site. With claims of a misplaced order number or garbled address they ask for your personal information . In the hopes of catching the odd lucky unaware fish, they cast a wide net using mass mailing software. Barring the direct contact some of these villains surf the web and gather information about you from social networking sites and then attack. They spend their days trolling myspace or facebook to learn enough about their potential victims to hack their personal accounts.

You may have heard of a recent example of this, the hacking of the Republican Vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s email by guessing her security question and answer on Google. There are some things you can do to protect yourself. The obvious, limit the number of places and types of personal information you put on your social network pages. Use coded answers to your security questions such as an anagram of your home town rather than your actual birth place. When it comes to phishing expeditions if you encounter unsolicited emails asking for personal or financial information treat them with extreme caution. If they are asking for your password, social security number or other personal identifiers go back to the web site and enter the data through the account maintenance page of the company.

Look for a sign that you are on a secure server when giving out things like credit card numbers. Following these few techniques as well as reporting suspicious contacts to your ISP can greatly enhance your experience surfing the web.

Identity Theft can be devastating, for anyone’s personal finances. Simply put, Identity theft occurs when some of your personal information has been obtained by some third party - who then uses it to obtain credit in your name. Sometimes the culprit goes farther than that, and commits all sorts of criminal acts in your name by using your personal information. And you are responsible for it all.

Imagine trying to get a loan for a house or a car, and finding that you have been rejected - your credit score is too low, and you have too many open accounts! How is this possible? That pre-approved credit application you threw away a few months back might be the culprit. You might discover that a dozen cards have been opened in your name, all of them overdue and maxed out. Your credit future is destroyed. It really isn’t as simple as calling a credit card company and telling them you didn’t open the account. As far as they know, the account was opened by you - they have no reason to believe otherwise. And considering they may have lent thousands of dollars to someone they believed to be you, they aren’t likely to simply forgive the debt. They want someone to pay for it, and you are as good a person as any.

You may even start to receive calls from debt collectors, daily calls demanding that you pay your account in full. You can try to tell them that the charges were not authorized, and you may even convince some of them - but the calls will continue as the debt is passed around to different owners. In the meantime, you can forget about getting any kind of credit. If the credit companies won’t forgive the debt, they aren’t going to remove the negative marks on your credit record. So when you actually need credit for yourself - be it something as small as a department store charge account, or something as large as a house - you will not be able to. Even in the easiest cases, identity theft can take years to unravel, and costs thousands of dollars to rectify. Protect yourself!

Identity theft is the criminal act of stealing personal information from another person with out their knowledge and using it to commit fraudulent acts. Things like your social security number, your bank account number, or credit card number can be stolen and used by other people and usually without your knowledge. People do this to profit at your expense.

Sometimes the thief not only uses your money and credit but steals your name also to buy stuff like houses and cars in your name. Or they can use your name birthday and social security to get a job, cell phone, credit card and they can change your address so that you will never know. Identity thief’s are tricky and they don’t care what kind of damage they do to you because it’s at no expense to them. Identity theft is a big problem and it wasn’t always punishable by federal law.

It became such a big problem that finally in 1998 congress made identity theft a federal offense. There are things you can do to reduce the risk of having your identity stolen. First don’t put your information on the internet or give it to another person unless you are 100% sure that it is safe if there is even a little doubt don’t do it. Also check your bank accounts and credit regularly so that you notice any change immediately. If you think that you are a victim or you notice something out of the ordinary call someone immediately. The faster you catch it the less damage it will do.

Some of the people that you can call are the Federal Trade Commission, Social Security Administration or the Office of the Inspector General. Identity theft has affected many people in the united states and it can be hard to fix all the damage it does. Sometimes you cant fix it all. So be careful with your information and make sure that it doesn’t happen to you. You don’t have to do it alone though the government and other officials are trying their best to tighten security and keep you information safe. Just remember to double check yourself and call someone immediately if you are suspicious you don’t want identity fraud to happen to you.

We’ve all heard about identity theft. We all know that its one of the fastest growing crimes in the USA. But do we know if we’ve been victimized? How do we detect if our own identities have been stolen? There are many clues to show you that you’ve been a victim of identity theft.

Here are a few examples of the obvious ones to look out for.

• You’re looking over your credit card statement. You notice a series of charges listed that you know you didn’t make. This is a clear sign of trouble and could be a case of identity theft.
• Any time you find fraudulent charges on your credit card statement, withdraws from your checking/savings account that you don’t recall making, etc., you need to report these directly to your financial institutions. You may be able to determine that you just forgot you made these expenditures, but its better to be safe than sorry.
• You’re out shopping with a friend. You go to check out and your credit/debit card is declined. You know you’ve plenty of money left on your account to pay for your purchases. This is a major red flag. If you know how much money is left in your bank/credit card account, yet it gets declined for insufficient funds, you may be a victim of identity theft. Once again, you’ll need to contact your financial institutions to determine what’s happened with your account. You may have to request an additional paper/electronic statement of your account to review. That request is worth any additional fees you may accrue.
• You go to your mailbox to get your mail. In it you find bills for credit cards or loans that you’ve not applied for nor own that are in your name. This is a serious infringement on your identity. You must call the creditors and find out when and why these loans/accounts were opened. There’s little doubt that your identity has been stolen in this example. You may have to report the crime to your local police department at this stage.

As you can see, the clues to identity theft are pretty obvious; however, if you’re not on top of your financial accounts, you may not notice some of the clues. Staying aware of all of your financial accounts is one key to knowing when you may be in trouble.