Here are some tips to protect your identity during the holiday season:
- Carry only what you need
Some of us tend to carry all of our credit cards in our purses or wallets in addition to our social security card. This might seem convenient, but it is the perfect set up for identity theft. Keep the number of items you carry to a bare minimum.
- Take precautions online
There is a relatively new form of identity theft on the rise called formjacking. Formjacking involves cyber criminals hijacking credit card information from online forms. Making purchases, paying bills, and filing taxes online is commonplace today. Here are a few steps you can take to boost your privacy and help in preventing fraud:
- Keep your software up-to-date.
- Never install unidentified software.
- Download only from trusted sites.
- Always use up-to-date anti-spyware and anti-virus software, and run weekly scans.
- Use firewalls on your network.
- Regularly update passwords/passphrases, and make each one unique and challenging to crack.
- Take swift action of documents go missing
If you notice that important financial items or documents such as credit/debit cards, drivers licenses, or loan agreements have gone missing, you will need to act fast to contact every organization or creditor that issued them. Take these important action steps if you feel your identity has been compromised:
- Pull your credit reports from www.annualcreditreport.com and review them for any suspicious activity.
- Close any accounts that you believe have been tampered with or opened fraudulently.
- Place a ‘fraud alert’ on your credit reports, and check your credit reports regularly.
- File a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission.
- File a report with the police in the community where the identity theft took place.
- Identity theft is a serious crime. It can be a time-consuming and costly process that seriously affects your life, so be vigilant and take precautions.
Additional Resources:
https://marketingresourceblog.com/identity-theft-prevention-month/
