If you haven’t been living in a hole in the ground, you must know that the American economy is going through some very troublesome times. With all of the layoffs, foreclosures and other unfortunate goings on, identity theft may be becoming more appealing to those who never would have even thought of committing the crime before. This is not to say that you should stop letting your neighbors stop by for a visit, or become unfriendly to strangers but it definitely isn’t the time to let down your guard.
So how can you keep yourself protected from identity theft without giving the evil eye to every stranger and acquaintance you see? Simple. Get an identity theft protection plan. Although these identity protection services are not created equal, many have similar features; among them:
Credit monitoring: Instead of constantly having to check for fraud, most Americans are happy to review them once a year and then leave it at that and hope everything goes well. Identity protection plans do not have that blasé attitude. They check your credit weekly or even daily to let you know of changes to your file right away.
Fraud Alerts: Placed with all three credit bureaus and renewed every 90 days these fraud alerts prevent fraudulent credit (as small as a department store credit card or as large as a mortgage) from being opened in your name by requiring creditors to verify your identity (routinely done by calling you) before approving the creditor loan.
Database scanning: Some services are even more proactive, working to catch the thieves while they still have your information in hand but have yet to use it. For example, Identity Guard looks for credit card and loan applications that have your name on them so you can put the kibbutz on them before the accounts are even opened. LifeLock’s eRecon service checks the databases where identity thieves buy and sell information to see if any of your personal details are up on the bidding block.
Identity Theft Insurance: One of the best things that some services offer is their guarantee, insurance or warranty plans. This can help consumers immensely if they are victims of identity theft while in the care of a protection plan by assisting them with thousands of dollars of expenses.
Peace of mind: This is probably more valuable than all of the other features put together. When you put yourself and your family under the watchful eye of an identity theft protection service, you have less to worry about when submitting personal information online or through the mail and even as you go about your day, making purchases in stores are getting money out of the ATM.
At a tough time such as this one, it’s important for Americans to stand together, but that doesn’t mean that the person standing next to you should snatch your credit card. As the 9.8 million victims in 2008 can tell you, it’s a sad fact that you just can’t trust everyone to do the right thing. That being said, you can do the right thing for yourself and your family. Start doing some research into getting everyone protected. If you’re not ready to do that just yet, at least start shredding those old credit card statements and order your free credit report.