Preventing Your Valuables from Being Stolen

There are many preventive measures for protecting yourself. First of all, if you carry around any personal information, such as credit cards, insurance, diaries, it’s important to lock these up and look after them very carefully. If you are at home, make sure you keep your belongings with you at all times, and be sure that your doors are locked. Avoid taking credit cards and other important documents to public place such as the gym.

Monitoring Services

It may be tedious, and often times you forget to do this for yourself. However, the good news is that there are identity theft protection services that can help you prevent this tragedy from happening to you. They charge a small monthly fee, and services such as Lifelock do wallet checks, so you can be sure that your credit card information is safe, and if something does happen, Lifelock will repay you for the damages that have been incurred.

•    You should be suspicious if your health provider tells you that tests, supplies or equipment are free and that they just need your Medicare number for administrative purposes.  Only clinical laboratory tests are truly free under Medicare cover, and you may find that charges have been added for other tests after you have had them carried out.

•    Some providers may tell you that the more tests, equipment or supplies you get the cheaper it will be in the long run, but should only apply for those health care services you actually currently need.
•    Be wary of shock tactics, where providers try and scare you into opting for the higher cost treatments and tests.  Check whether you do actually need these tests and if you are still unsure then get a second opinion before you sign up for anything.

You can always protect yourself from identity theft by signing up for various identity theft protection services.

Identity theft is a major global concern, and as the economic crisis around the world worsens more and more desperate people will be turning to identity theft crime as a way to fund their lifestyles, resulting in some shocking statistics:

•    97% of all victims will be targeted by perfect strangers, and in the case of online frauds many of these will not even be in the same country, making it even more difficult for law enforcement agencies to track the crime.

•    On average it takes over 18 months for victims to discover that their identity has been stolen, as in many cases there is no obvious event to indicate this theft (such as a lost or stolen wallet or house burglary).  This means that a lot of damage can be done by identity thieves before the crime is discovered and by then they will have most likely have moved on to their next victim.

•    It can take at least 300 hours of work to resolve an identity theft case, which includes informing law enforcement agencies, credit references bureaus and relevant financial institutions, and also all of the many follow up communications victims will need to carry out in order to prove the theft has happened and clear their names.

•    Over 97% of all households carelessly throw away rubbish that could give identity thieves access to personal information that could be used for a number of fraudulent crimes.  Be safe and not sorry, and shred everything with your name address and other personal information (bank statements, household bills etc) before you throw it away.