You come home and you find that your television, your computer, and you other appliance are still safe. But then you find out the next day that your bank account was wiped empty and your personal credit trashed. The result of identity theft can be much more difficult to handle. It may not be as dangerous as finding yourself a victim of a burglary crime, but restoring your credit and clearing your name could take a lot of time as compared to replacing your valuables and personal possessions.

So what can you do to protect yourself from identity theft?

Properly destroy all private records and personal information, especially those that include private financial information

Safeguard your Social Security number

Do not carry your S.S. card and don’t allow your S.S. number to be used as an identification or account number

As much as possible, limit yourself to only one credit card and keep scrupulous records

Monitor your credit report for suspicious activity

Being a victim of identity theft is not always due to your own carelessness. It could be that a company has inadequately protected your information, or that you were duped through the Internet. With the many technological breakthroughs, our personal information have become increasingly vulnerable.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 19th, 2007 at 7:19 am and is filed under Identity Theft, Home Security Tips, Home Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.