ID Theft

[JUSTIFY]Who is most vulnerable to ID theft? Is there a pattern to ID theft? Will monitoring our Credit Bureaus reports help us watch possible ID theft? I have been pondering over these issues for the past year. I was under a false sense of security that being an Indian American with a South Indian name, it will be difficult for someone to steal my ID. I was proved wrong a year ago. When I was reviewing my credit report, one of the agencies indicated that some shipment had taken place in my name to an address in Florida which I did not recognize. Immediately, I called each one of the agencies and submitted information stating that I don’t recognize this address. Their answers were, “We had since removed that address from your report” or “You need to take up with USPS”. I figured out that no one is better in watching our back than us.

I did a lot of research to find out what are the possible causes of ID thefts. To my shock, I found out that the major source of ID theft is our use of internet. When we place orders for buying something online or when we submit our personal information including name, address and social security number online, there are some sophisticated key loggers that are developed to watch the key strokes we make in the computer. Many of us don’t even recognize that such a sophisticated key loggers exist in the registry of our system. Therefore, it is important for us to run Anti-Malware and Anti-Spyware software every week to find such sophisticated key loggers and remove them from our system regularly. It is always better to use access to bank accounts and other major credit card accounts through the same computer or a system that is protected by firewall instead of multiple computers.

In some cases, when we access a website, software in our system could divert us to another website. Therefore, it is important to look for certification or other authentication methods to look for the right website. Recently, I received an email from Bank of America asking some information and instead of providing that data online, I called over phone and they informed me that they never send any such personal information request through email. Most of us are familiar about receiving letters from Africa informing us that someone is ready to send millions of dollars to our bank account and all they need is details of our bank account. Obviously, such letters are the greatest source for ID theft.

I also learned that leaving bills along with our checks in our mailbox for a prolonged period of time is extremely dangerous as sometimes, miscreants access such mails to steal personal data. They open such mails, gather information and mail our check with bills in another envelope. Since the bills were paid on time and there was no loss of mail, we never realize that our mail was tampered with. Similarly, we also need to practice shredding all our mails including bills regularly instead of putting it in garbage.

Based on my research, I have found out that the type of names, ethnicity, etc. make no difference to those who are waiting to steal our identity. Many of our email IDs are compromised and people send all kinds of emails to everyone in the address book unless we keep changing our password every now and then. If we own a smart phone, even our location information is watched and shared with many others through many apps we download. Whether it is wireless or fiber-optic lines, we are always vulnerable to our identity theft because of internet connection we have to our system. Security we create in our system often becomes user-unfriendly to us and hence most of us prefer to set the security settings at the lowest level. The worst thing that could happen is our identity being stolen by someone and we didn’t even know about it for a period of time until strange things keep happening. The only consolation is, some credit card companies have excellent spending pattern monitoring and if they find any new vendor charging for a big amount, immediately they call to validate that expenditure. The best way to fight identity theft is to prevent it and please share your experiences so everyone could get benefited.
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Dear Momandme,

You are right. Prevention is the best way to take care of our identity and everyone should be knowledgeable to protect his/her identity.

Viswa

 

Dear Satchi,

Thank you for responding to this post. You are right about playing the one-up game. It is difficult to out think those criminals. Cash and carry is the best method to avoid ID theft. Unfortunately, we are in the technology world where some items have to be ordered through internet and businesses like Amazon and Ebay are thriving through internet use of the consumers. When we embrace technology, we have to also face the problems associated with technology as well. We have to keep our eyes open to see such traps.

Viswa

 

Dear Vijiakka,

Thank you for reading and responding to this post.

Viswa