According to a study conducted in 2005 by the not-for-profit Identity Theft Resource Center, the average online identity theft victim spends an estimated $1400.00 as well as 600 hours in an attempt to clear his or her name and to repair their credit history. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) the average amount of money stolen from every victim of identify theft or fraud is $10,200. The total overall loss to consumers for identify theft has reached a whopping four billion dollars and this is only expected to climb in the years to come.   

Once a criminal has gained access to your Social Security number (SSN), your bank account, your credit card numbers and your address as well as any other pertinent information, they can then shop in your name, apply for a mortgage, open new credit card accounts, and even create a whole new address. The key is to making sure that your personal information stays as private as possible.

One way to accomplish total privacy is to not provide your SSN to anyone over the Internet. When shopping online or doing other forms of business it should rarely be necessary to give it but if a company does request it, do a background check on the company and do as much research as you need to in order to determine the company’s legitimacy. As well be extremely careful with the passwords you choose for your e-mail accounts and any other accounts (such as shopping accounts) that you set up over the Internet. Do not allow other people access to your passwords and be as creative as you can possibly be when deciding on an appropriate password. Create passwords that would not be easy for a crook to decipher such as having a combination of letters and numbers put together in a strange way. Also have a mixture of lower-case and upper-case letters. It is also good practice to not choose a single word as a password but rather a phrase and choose a phrase that is at least seven to nine characters in length.

The best method of paying when doing business online is by credit card because there is a transaction trail to follow if a problem should arise down the line. Be aware that all credit card purchases made over the Internet are dully protected by what is known as the Fair Credit Billing Act. This act was put in place to protect consumers if case they found it necessary to dispute a charge they made or in the case that a suspicious charge should show up. Some credit card companies even offer their customers what amounts to an “online computer shopping guarantee.” In this way the customer is not held liable for any unauthorized purchases made on their credit card. Some companies have a cap on the monetary amount whereas others do not.

It is essential to always keep your credit cared information private and to always print off records of every transaction, every confirmation number and every purchase made. When you receive your monthly credit card statement, always look it over thoroughly to make sure there are no charges that were not made by you.

 

Related posts:

1. The Virtual Credit Card — What it is and Why You Should Have It
2. Quickie Guide to Protecting your Online Shopping Identity
3. Been Online Shopping Lately? You Might Want to Check your Credit Report, Just to be Safe

If you are sent unsolicited e-mail from a company that you have shopped with in the past, never click on any links or images in the message. If you do then you are only asking for trouble. If a company sends you an e-mail and wants you to contact them for any reason at all, always open a new browser window and then proceed to type in the web address of the business and log in to your shopping account to find out what the situation is. Realize that criminals sometime send e-mails under the guise of legitimate businesses to obtain the personal information of its customers. You might even want to give the business a call if an e-mail appears suspicious. It would be a good idea to find an excellent spam filter to ensure that phishing e-mail messages do not have the opportunity to reach you at all.

Make sure that your Social Security number remains as private as it possibly can be. When you open a new account at a website you wish to shop at, do not allow any part of your SSN to be used as your identification number or your account number. As well keep all passwords to any of your bank accounts or online accounts private. Don’t leave around a piece of paper on your desk with the sensitive information.

Always keep all of your credit card information on CD-RWS as opposed to on the hard drive of your computer. Never leave the discs in a drive when the computer is not in use. Instead save the CDs in a safe, secure place that only you are aware of. If it is necessary for you to save sensitive personal information such as credit card numbers on the hard drive then install a program such as “Password Agent” to help ensure safety and security. Password Agent has both a free version, which is limited but also an unlimited version that costs $20.00

Whenever you make an online credit purchase, always carefully review all of your charges to ensure that you definitely did buy what the records are showing you bought. Go over your records with a fine toothcomb and if you need to dispute a charge, contact your credit card company right away. Be aware that often criminals operating online will sometimes make small purchases over a particular span of time so they are less likely to be detected right away. 

Many of the major credit bureaus offer a credit monitoring service which is definitely a good investment for anyone who shops online. To use an example, the credit bureau, TransUnion has an “Identity Fraud Watch” service that on a weekly basis sends out e-mails to consumers to make them aware of any modifications that have been made to their credit report or profile. TransUnion charges $44.00 per year for this service but it is worth the money. Other credit bureaus such as Equifax and Experian also have a similar system in place although Equifax charges an annual fee of $100.00 while Experian charges $120.00. There are some states, such as California and Texas, consumers can request where credit freezes. What this means is that a potential creditor can only access your credit report with your permission. Every time this is done it costs you money however. It costs eight dollars for a potential creditor to look at your credit report and then ten dollars to freeze the report after that. 

 

Related posts:

1. Been Online Shopping Lately? You Might Want to Check your Credit Report, Just to be Safe
2. Stealing Identities- Make Sure You are not a Victim When Doing the E-Commerce Thing
3. The Virtual Credit Card — What it is and Why You Should Have It