Identity theft can have devastating consequences, including unauthorized transactions, damaged credit, and financial loss. By following these practical tips, you can significantly reduce the risk of falling victim to identity theft and ensure your money and sensitive information remain secure. Taking proactive steps to protect your finances not only prevents potential losses but also provides peace of mind, knowing that your hard-earned money is safe from fraudsters.
1. Monitor Your Credit Diligently
One of the first identity theft prevention tips to start with is monitoring your credit. Before, you could request a copy of your credit for free once a year or pay for new reports. However, there are ways you can monitor your info for free and check in as much as you want. Setting this up allows you to get real-time alerts, so if anyone applied for anything where a credit check was done you are instantly noticed. This lets you catch things immediately so you can take action on anything that was not done by you.
2. Review Your Financial Accounts Often
Review your bank statements often, check in and see the latest activity, and look for any weird payments or money transfers. Since credit card hacking is one of the top issues, definitely look at your credit card statements. But it doesn’t stop there, if you have an investment account then you want to set up alerts and monitor this activity as well.
3. Add Fraud Alerts or Freeze Your Credit
What’s great is this alert is good for up to one year and when you apply it to say Experian, they alert TransUnion and Equifax which also then has alerts in place. The goal of this is that if someone were to apply for something where your credit is checked, that company is supposed to call and verify that it is legit before approving the application.
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4. Use Identity Theft Software
If you are looking for more protection and insights into your information, paying for identity theft software might be a great idea. Most offer various services like personal info monitoring, dark web monitoring, social media monitoring, protecting children’s information, to even helping your recover any financial damages. There is no completely full-proof way to prevent identity theft completely. Even if you were off the grid, your social security and info is most likely in the hands of the credit bureaus.
5. Add Additional Login Credentials
Many times, the way thieves get your info or into your accounts is due to weak login protections. Since everything is going digital, this can cause your information to be phished or scammed. There are a few things you can do that are quite common. You can add two-step verification to your accounts. This means besides entering your password on financial accounts, you’ll be sent a random verification number to your phone or email that you have to enter next.
6. Avoid Public WiFi Without Using A VPN
Another identity theft prevention tip that many overlook is using public WiFi carelessly. Whether you are at a coffee shop, the airport, a hotel, etc., public WiFi can leave you open to being hacked and people accessing your financial accounts. What VPNs do is re-route the IP address and then your online activity is encrypted, so you cannot be tracked. I also use this for my home internet as well, more of a precaution and it’s also a privacy concern in my opinion.
7. Update Passwords On a Regular Cadence
One of the obvious identity theft prevention tips on this list is about having good passwords on your financial accounts and other personal information. But not only is having a strong password important, but you should be updating them on some regular cadence.
8. Avoid Clicking Odd Links In Texts or Emails
Often your financial accounts may send you information via email or text. However, it’s important you know the kind of emails and ways they will get in contact with you first. The reason for this is many scammers or hackers will use a “phishing” technique where they create emails or texts that look incredibly legit with links that when clicked could install malware, capture account info, or even have a landing page that looks like the real one and you end up entering your personal info.
9. Be Smart About Your Social Security Number
Unfortunately, your social security number is used for quite a bit and there are plenty of financial institutions that have your info on file. The problem is, you can’t control what they exactly do with your info and if they end up getting hacked. The best you can do is to ensure your social security card is safe or locked away, refrain from saying it over the phone, sharing via email, or writing it down and forgetting it somewhere.
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