How To Protect Yourself From Becoming A Victim Of Identity Theft

Protecting your financial identity from credit card fraud

Online security is big concern for anyone who shops or does online banking. We have all heard the stories of people whose identities were stolen leading to years of credit issues and financial stress. It seems that as retailers get smarter so do these fraudsters, making it increasingly harder to protect yourself from identity theft. At the same time, we live in a wired world that makes it nearly impossible not to use the Internet, and not to put your identity out into cyberspace.

Protect yourself from loss, theft and identity crime

SecureIdentity from Secure Sentinel can help protect you from identity theft, by monitoring activity that could indicate that your identity is being compromised.

Features of Secure Identity – with one single call you can:

• Cancel any affected credit cards or other financial cards (including cover from the time they were lost to the time you notified them, until the time they notify your banks etc.
• Arrange replacement cards
• Place a temporary block on your mobile phone that is registered with Secure Identity
• Help you with item details for a police claim or insurance claim
• If you are eligible, you can even receive a cash advance fo $1,000 AUD in the case of an emergency
• Organise the safe return of any lost or stolen registered items that were recovered
• Give you help and advice to get through the situation as smoothly as possible with the least amount of stress.

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Credit card fraud is also a concern for the credit card issuers. They spend millions of dollars every year on protections and on paying out on fraudulent claims. Remember that just because your card offers you a zero liability guarantee does not mean that they also have zero liability. They have to pay on those charges, either in full or on some agreed amount with the merchant that accepted the card. The best defense against these scams is to be smart about how you use your credit card, and to pay close attention to each transaction.

How To Avoid Identity Theft

The phishing scam is one of the most common forms of credit card fraud. These criminals send out emails asking for a ‘identity check’ when you respond they have all of your personal information. They then use that information to access your accounts or to build fraudulent accounts in your name. Recently a Russian website tricked 50 people into disclosing their personal information through this type of scam. Banks like Westpac are working hard to protect their customers with sophisticated tracking software.

The best defense though is to never respond to an email asking for your personal data. Reputable banks will not ask you to disclose this kind of information over the Internet. If you receive an email requesting you to do an identity check contact your credit card issuer to see if the email is real. Odds are it is a scam and your card company will deal with it accordingly.

Identity theft is a scary prospect. You can lose money by having to pay bills that are not yours but what is worse is that your credit file will be affected. Even if you can prove that you did not make the fraudulent charges it can take years to completely clear those marks from your file. In the interim it will be hard to get loans, lines of credit, or new credit cards.

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