Cases of identity (ID) theft increased during the last year as more people worked remotely. Because, while many businesses easily moved their operations online, they and their employees may not have had measures in place to protect themselves.
As a result, WRAL TechWire reports that fraud has been happening on a massive scale.
However, businesses and individuals can take steps to protect themselves.
Identity Theft Protection Tips
To protect yourself from identity theft, you need to know what it is and how to prevent it. Money reports that ID crimes happen whenever an individual uses another person’s information to impersonate that person in some way.
Two of the most common forms of financial ID crimes include application fraud and account takeover fraud. In both cases, criminals use your information to open new credit accounts or access existing bank or credit accounts.
One of the ways to prevent an ID crime is to practice “good password hygiene.” This includes long passwords with unique characters, numbers, and symbols.
Another way to protect yourself is to be aware of social engineering efforts. This means not opening emails from addresses you do not recognize, not downloading attachments, and not clicking links to unknown websites.
In the event you are the victim of identity theft, Forbes recommends checking your accounts and your credit reports. Thankfully, most credit card companies offer fraud protection that reverse unauthorized charges to your account.
Additionally, the article suggests reporting fraud and freezing account access with the three credit reporting agencies. This prevents new credit accounts being created with your information.
The Fair Credit Reporting Act gives you the right to dispute inaccuracies on your credit report. You need to file an identity crime report and include the report with your dispute to the reporting agencies. Credit reporting agencies then must block fraudulent credit accounts from being added to your credit report after official notification.
The Keating Agency hopes you do not fall victim to identity crimes and that this information helps you protect yourself and your family. Know that whatever problems you face, we are here to help you in any way that we can.
As your local, independent insurance agency for more than 50 years, the Keating Agency is here to help you protect everything important to you. Give us a call.