Identity Theft

The book I read to research this post was Identity Theft for Dummies by Michael J Arata which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. Even quite prominent people like Robert DeNiro have been victims of identity theft. Most cases of identity theft are done by someone known to the victim although in a lot of cases the victim has no idea how the perpetrator got his details. The main details needed are the social security number & the date of birth. The perpetrator can then get credit with them & even open a bank account. The first sign that something is wrong is when your bills don't arrive on time because the perpetrator has had them diverted. You should only give out your social security number if you get a new job or you apply for credit & shouldn't routinely carry it in your wallet. While we are on that subject you should only carry 1 credit card & then it's easier to deal with it if your wallet gets stolen. It can take years to deal with the consequences of identity theft particularly the bad credit rating you are left with. The people most at risk are those with an excellent credit rating. Identity theft can take the form of someone going through your garbage to get things like bank statements or tax returns you have thrown out, or someone can peer over your shoulder to get your pin number, a similiar thing can be done with camera phones, dodgy websites are another problem & also dodgy emails. You should never reveal your bank details or pin numbers to anyone especially online. Any legitimate company will never ask for that information.