If you have an outstanding credit rating, or even a decent score, you are a potential victim of identity theft. Avoid credit card fraud, and protect your privileged credit status, by following these simple tips for fraud prevention. Take care with personal records, maintain secure practices with your cards, and verify information frequently and you can avoid fraudulent transactions and ID theft.
Personal Record Maintenance Reduces Fraud
Carefully maintaining personal records, including bank statements, bills and store receipts, is absolutely necessary in order to prevent identity theft. Identity thieves can easily gather enough information from discarded papers to open a new credit account in your name. A bill or receipt provides the thief with the ability to request a new card, or to make charges online, or by phone, using your account information. You can prevent the exploitation of your personal papers by keeping track of all paperwork. Shred any papers or receipts that you don't need, to eradicate any traces of personal information.
Safeguard Your Cards
Worried about losing your high rating? Keep your cards safe. You can protect your accounts by maintaining physical custody of all of your cards at all times. When a credit or debit card is handed to a server in a restaurant, for example, and whisked out of sight for 10 minutes or more, you have no way of verifying the security of the card. In order to prevent identity theft in this situation, consider paying with cash, or even walking the card to the register.
Verify Transactions and Credit Lines
Reading your credit statements each month, and immediately disputing any questionable transactions, can help you avoid the consequences of fraud when it occurs. Credit companies have dispute resolution processes that take identity theft into consideration, so you should not be liable for charges that were made by unauthorized individuals, as long as you dispute the charges in a timely manner.
Frequent evaluation of your credit report is another important aspect of avoiding identity theft. Any credit lines that have been opened by an identity thief on your behalf will show up on your report as open accounts. If you find accounts that you didn't sign up for, you can close the account and dispute any charges. You don't even have to pay for it - every U.S. citizen is entitled to get a free credit report from each of the "Big Three" credit reporting agencies (Experian, Equifax and TransUnion) once a year.
Don't Wait to Protect Yourself from Identity Theft
Your credit rating can be seriously affected by theft and fraud, and the longer you wait to take action, the worse the damage will be. Preventative actions, such as maintaining records and charge cards securely, can prevent identity theft in most cases. Immediate action on your part, by disputing charges to a card or accounts on your annual report, can help prevent damage in the event that fraud does take place. Combine preventative action with reactive action, and you can keep your credit safe.
Reference:
Internet Crime Complaint Center FBI - NW3C Partnership. Accessed March 17, 2011.
Updated: March, 2011
Victoria Nicks - Victoria Nicks has a Master's Degree in IT, and extensive hands-on experience with various types of hardware and software.
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