Identity Theft

While all types of identity theft involve deception one of the most sinister is synthetic identity theft because it can be one of the trickiest to detect. What this type of identity theft entails is the thief not using all of your personal information directly, but instead using just some of it and fabricating the rest. In the most common example, he uses your real Social Security number but then ties it to a different address and a different name. This makes it so that he can create accounts that you may not be able to see simply by checking your credit report. They either won’t show up at all or they will be filed away differently, often as “subaccounts.”

This doesn’t mean that synthetic identity theft can’t negatively affect your credit. Anyone who has ever been contacted by a collection agency knows that the people that work there are experts at tracking you down. So how will you know an account was created using some of your details if it is not on your credit report? Simple. You will need an identity theft protection service that digs a bit deeper than what you can do yourself.

By browsing through the plans available on this site, you will notice that some provide you with online records searches and other tools that can help you detect theft long before information that it has occurred shows up due to contact by phone or through your mailbox. You can also contact the Social Security Administration and have your employment records pulled. Seeing employment you don’t recognize is a red flag, but it’s a good idea to catch the fraud before it gets to this point.

If you’re ever turned down for credit and you’re confused as to why, read the denial letter very carefully. You could find that the information the creditor used was not really associated with your account. If this is the case, you need to get on the phone immediately and work on sorting out the situation with the creditor. Sometimes, it is the creditor’s error, and sometimes it is a case of synthetic identity theft – or even direct identity theft, where the thief uses solely your legitimate information.

Thieves are getting smarter about being tougher to track. This means you need to start getting smarter too. Stay informed. Check your records. Find and use an identity theft protection service.

One way that some people find out they’ve been victims of identity theft is because they go to file their taxes and discover that they’ve already been filed by someone else. Another is when people who are exempt from filing, for whatever reason, learn that a return was filed for them anyway. A recommendation by the Taxpayer Advocacy Panel, if it’s made into official policy, could help prevent the latter.

This idea includes adding a clause to Form 9452 that people can use to let the IRS know to block their Social Security numbers so they are not available for use on tax returns. The form would also have a place for people to request to have previously blocked numbers unblocked, a spot for the person’s address and a space for a perjury statement.

In reply to this proposal, the deputy director of the IRS’s Identity Protection Office of Privacy responded, “We have already requested the creation of a new identity theft indicator which would specifically indicate the taxpayer has no filing requirements and has requested their account be locked.”

He further explained that returns filed using locked Social Security numbers would be rejected before they made it through the system. This could save people a lot of time and hassle.

It seems unfair that people who shouldn’t have to worry about filing taxes still have to worry some. And for those who do have to file taxes, it’s super important to keep all that paper work you need in a safe place. Most tax information you get will have your Social Security number on it, since that is how the IRS identifies you. It’s most important to insure that any important tax documents don’t sit in an unlocked mailbox for too long. If necessary, rent a post office box so that your sensitive information doesn’t sit outside ripe for the picking.

As tax time gets closer and closer, now may be a good time to look into identity theft protection. You don’t want to wait until ID theft happens to you to get a policy. You want to get that policy now so that you can prevent future theft. With 10 million Americans getting into this type of hassle every year, you really can’t guarantee that you won’t be the next victim.

You would like to think that when a person gets convicted of identity theft, he or she would receive the proper punishment and think more than twice about committing the crime again. Too bad this is not always the case. For example, Aurea Picasso of Illinois was convicted of identity theft and lived to steal another day.

In fact, she was hired to be the director of welfare in Hanover County, while she was awaiting trial for her first crime – which was stealing from the welfare system. Even after she stole another $25,000 on top of the $200,000 she was on trial for, she wasn’t fired from her job until she committed an unrelated offense.

What’s even more interested is that Picasso, upon learning that people may have been catching on to her crimes, decided to have a shredding party in the office with several other county employees, to destroy evidence that would help support the identity theft charges coming against her. It’s curious to wonder whether these other people knew what they were shredding or were just happy to spend a day doing something different. It’s too bad for Picasso that the state had additional copies of these documents.

To learn from this situation? You can’t always count on the government or law enforcement to protect you from identity theft. Even though state and national agencies can be an important tool in fighting these types of crimes, mistakes can happen and people can fall under the radar – even in pretty blatant cases.

It’s important to keep yourself safe and not rely on anyone else to protect you. One way to do that is to take the imitative and look into personal identity theft protection.

Its probably best to start by looking at our top rated identity protection services like LifeLock, TrustedID and Identity Guard and seeing which plan suits your family best. Reviews are found at the top right corner of every page.

Winter has arrived and you know tax season will be rearing its ugly head before you know it. If you find yourself looking for a tax preparer to help you decipher all of those deductions and W-2s, be sure to stay away from a little company called “Sharon’s Tax Services” run by Sharon Thurman.

According to the Department of Justice, the owner of this establishment, Sharon Thurman, allegedly tried to get over $50,000 in fraudulent tax refunds using the names and Social Security numbers of her unsuspecting clients. If she’s convicted, she could be fined as much as $4 million and go to prison for a very long time.

This is just another example of people in a position of having personal information for legitimate work purposes misusing this information to commit identity theft. It is a disturbing occurrence because the consumer who chooses to take advantage of the service is not doing anything negligent and still ends up a victim anyway. It’s just as bad as when a data breach happens and someone posts the stolen personal information on the Internet.

Of course, you should be very careful when choosing your tax preparer. You may want to stick with an established company, like H&R Block, go through your financial institution or ask friends and family for referrals. But even then, there is no guarantee you’ll be safe.

In addition to taking that step, another good one to pursue is identity theft protection. You may be thinking that you don’t need such a plan and that it really isn’t worth the money but if you do some research, you’ll find that they are very affordable and they are helping consumers to keep their credit safe. This is especially important when statistics compiled by the Federal Trade Commission show that over 10 million Americans were victimized last year. Preparing your taxes is a hassle enough. It is nothing compared to the hassle of getting your identity restored.

With all the focus as of late on online fraud, people tend to forget that identity thieves can still operate in low key ways as well. This happened to Brooke Harper of South Hutchinson, Kansas. Someone decided to pose as her simply by using her paper checks. Harper told KWCH News, “I don’t even carry checks on me anymore so I don’t know how [the thief] got a hold of my checks.”

A representative of the local police department stated that reactions like this one are not uncommon. People often neglect to safeguard items, like checks, that they rarely think about anymore thanks to the fact that pretty much everything is electronic now. Don’t lax on protecting yourself on paper. It could come back to bite you in the end. Not all thieves are high tech cyber hackers. Some still operate simply, by snatching purses and swiping telephone bills.

In addition to always knowing where your paper checks are – since they contain your bank account information, your name, your address, and possibly your Social Security number – you should make sure thieves can never access your sensitive details when you receive account statements in the mail or when you throw them out or recycle them. Be careful even with statements that you may feel are insignificant. You could be surprised how much a thief can glean just with the tiniest speck of information, like a birth date, as a starting point. This is especially true if the personnel at businesses you patronage is not too stringent about information security.

The best thing to do to keep your identity safe in print fashion is to invest in a cross cutting shredder and shred everything that puts you in question even for a minute. There’s no harm in shredding things you really don’t need to, but the same can’t be said for the other way around. And, if you prefer to bank on the computer anyway, sign up for electronic bills and electronic statements. Most times, when you decide you want these items online instead of on paper, you’ll automatically stop receiving them in the mail, but sometimes you have to specifically request to have your paper statements stopped. Make sure to find this out from your financial institution or the company who’s sending you the bills.

Upon finding out that she was a victim of identity theft, Harper had this to say,” The people that do this don’t seem to realize it’s not just a name on a check; you’re messing with somebody’s life.” There is really no better advertisement for an identity theft protection service.