Identity theft not slowing down; how to protect yourself

Kristina Haney

In America, identities are a top commodity; every four seconds, an identity is stolen.

In light of the recent events of credit card hacking at popular businesses, Target and Neiman Marcus and even the database hacking at the MCCCD offices, many companies are trying to get consumers to understand the importance of identity protection and what to do when an identity gets stolen and credit is compromised.

Neiman Marcus may have compromised more than a million of its customers’ payment cards, while the Target hack affected up to 110 million. Recently, Michaels arts and crafts stores have released information that they are investigating possible fraudulent activity with their customers’ methods of payment.

Companies, such as LifeLock, provide multiple services to ensure safe identities. Some of the services LifeLock provides are services that are the easiest way to prevent fraud. For instance, Lost Wallet Protection is a way to cancel credit and debit cards when a wallet is lost or stolen to help stop fraudulent charges before they occur.

The LifeLock Ultimate service, which is their most expensive and extensive service, provides everything the standard LifeLock service had, but adds more in-depth services such as Bank Account Takeover Alerts. This alert notifies the user of any attempts to access bank accounts to change identity data or add a name to the account.

“Every month LifeLock members will have a summary or report about their accounts,” said Jessica, a LifeLock Chat Specialist. LifeLock also has a service called LifeLock Junior and is intended to keep the credit of children safe. Because of the “clean” credit children have,  hackers and frauds can use their identity and not raise any red flags.

Identity theft does not just include credit card theft though. “Identity thieves can also create accounts and take out loans in your name,” said Gretchen, a local insurance agent. “This can cause many years of damage to your credit which can prevent someone from buying a house or getting a job.”

Social Security numbers (SSN) are the keys to unlocking the most important information in someone’s life. There are only 40 uses of the SSN approved by Congress, but many people will drop their SSN in paperwork that isn’t needed. At the doctor, even if the office receives an insurance card from a patient, it may still ask unnecessarily for their SSN.

In the unfortunate case of identity theft, some insurance companies, such as Travelers Insurance, has the ability to restore lost wages up to a certain amount as a result of time taken off from work to deal with identity fraud for up to five weeks. They also reimburse fees to reapply for loans that were denied due to erroneous credit information caused by identity fraud.

Most insurance companies offer identity theft coverage with homeowners and renters policies. Some include limited coverage automatically, some have extensive coverage included and some can add the coverage by an endorsement for a nominal premium.

It is important to keep ones identity safe. Shredding mail, old credit cards and overall awareness of personal accounts and belongings is a sure way to stop identity theft. 

  • Mesa Legend Staff

    These are archived stories from Mesa Legend editions before Fall 2018. See article for corresponding author.

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