{"id":7612,"date":"2008-11-17T11:34:17","date_gmt":"2008-11-17T17:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/2008\/11\/17\/how-to-protect-yourself-from-identify-theft\/"},"modified":"2008-11-17T11:34:17","modified_gmt":"2008-11-17T17:34:17","slug":"how-to-protect-yourself-from-identify-theft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/?p=7612","title":{"rendered":"How to Protect Yourself from Identify Theft"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style='italic;' class='uawbyline'>by Paul Wilcox<\/div>\n<p>You wouldnt go driving down the highway during rush hour with a blindfold on, would you?  Hopefully not (and if you do, please let me know what roads you drive on).  If you do not protect yourself from identity theft, thats basically the same as driving blindfolded.  Dont think identity theft can never happen to you because you are too well educated or too poor.  Identity theft can happen to anybody from all walks of life.  According to The Presidents Identity Theft Task Force, about 10 <a href=\"http:\/\/millionaireforum.info\/blog\" class=\"kblinker\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"More about million &raquo;\">million<\/a> Americans become victims of identity theft a year.  The good <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newsandreviews.info\" class=\"kblinker\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"More about NEWS &raquo;\">news<\/a> is you can protect yourself from identity theft for free and by using your common sense.<\/p>\n<p>Know Your <a href=\"http:\/\/www.meyouworld.net\/EG\/tag\/Credit_Cards.html\" class=\"kblinker\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"More about Credit &raquo;\">Credit<\/a> Report<\/p>\n<p>One of the best things you can do to protect yourself from identity theft is get an annual credit report.  You are allowed to get three free credit reports a year from Equifax, TransUnion and Experian.  You can find more information at AnnualCreditReport.com.  In this way, you can find out as soon as possible if there are any questionable transactions on any of your accounts, or if someone is trying to take a loan out in your name!  The sooner you can spot the work of an identity thief, the sooner you can get things sorted out.<\/p>\n<p>Also, keep track of your monthly bank or credit card statements.  They will also show any questionable transactions and protect you from identity theft.<\/p>\n<p>Stay Alert<\/p>\n<p>Cash is valuable, right?  Well, so is your drivers license, Social Security card and laptop computer.  Think of them as valuable as cash &#8221; they certainly are to a thief!    Keep physical contact on them at all times when you are outside your home.  Dont leave them unsupervised of sitting on the seats in a locked car even for a few minutes.<\/p>\n<p>Emails Seeking Information<\/p>\n<p>If you get an email looking for personal information such as account numbers or passwords that you think may be from your bank, it&#8217;s likely that it isn&#8217;t really your bank emailing you but someone looking to gather information. These emails can be made to look as realistic as needed in order to seem legitimate. The best thing that you can do is not even respond to these messages. But if you happen to realize after the fact that you have replied to one of these sites mimicking another such as eBay, contact eBay immediately and change your password and freeze your account. Hopefully nothing will happen other than learning a valuable lesson in identity theft.<\/p>\n<div class='uawresource'>\n<div style='italic;' class='uawabout'>About the Author:<\/div>\n<div class='uawlinks'>Concerned about identity theft and other types of internet threats? Learn how to set up solid <a href=\"http:\/\/www.securitymanor.com\">internet security<\/a> so you don&#8217;t get attacked on the net. Get more tips and information at http:\/\/www.securitymanor.com<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You wouldnt go driving down the highway during rush hour with a blindfold on, would you?  Hopefully not (and if you do, please let me know what roads you drive on).  If you do not protect yourself from identity theft, thats basically the same as driving blindfolded.  Dont think identity theft can never happen to you because you are too well educated or too poor.  Identity theft can happen to anybody from all walks of life.  According to The Presidents Identity Theft Task Force, about 10 million Americans become victims of identity theft a year.  The good news is you can protect yourself from identity theft for free and by using your common sense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":151,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[133],"class_list":["post-7612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-security","tag-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/151"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7612\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}