There are many ways your identity can be stolen. In this article I will go over a few ways an identity thief can steal your personal information and I will provide a few tips to help you avoid becoming the next victim.

A lost or stolen wallet is just one way for a thief to get your information. They can fraudulently access your credit report by pretending to be an employer, loan officer, or a landlord. Unprotected internet records are another great source for the thieves to quickly highjack your personal information.

Many will go dumpster diving looking for bills or other papers with your personal information on it. Many people receive daily offers for credit cards. If you’re not interested, you just throw them away. Thieves love finding these! The problem of criminals rummaging through bins for such documents is well known and there have been reports of organized gangs paying people to pick through landfill sites for such documents. A change of address form can be used to divert billing statements to another private location. This will give the thieves access to your credit card numbers. You can protect yourself by investing in a powerful shredder to shred all of your personal unwanted documents. The one I recommend is the Fellowes Powershred 100-Percent Jam Proof 79Ci14 Sheet Cross-Cut Paper Shredder.

With this shredder you can protect your personal information and it comes with a safe-sensor technology and a 6 gallon pull-out bin so that you can shred and protect a lot of unwanted documents before throwing them away. For businesses you may want to  consider the Fellowes 3229901 PowerShred 99Ci 17 Sheet Cross-Cut Shredder.

You may not want to spend money on a shredder, but you should consider investing in a good shredder as doing so will save you thousands down the road and it will keep criminals from stealing your identity and using your identity to live a “perfect” life.

Another way criminals can steal your identity is by shoulder surfing. This is done at ATM machines. Criminals stand behind you and get your pin as you type it in.

A more advanced way would be using a scanning machine implanted above the ATM to read the card and make debit card clones. Thieves have direct access to your bank account and will drain your account dry.

Other ways include spam emails from strangers hoping to get your personal info, bogus websites made to look like the real thing, and key logging, a method used to monitor the sites you visit on the web.   

Identity Theft Avoidance Tips

Now that I provided you a little background on how thieves can steal you identity it time to focus on Identity theft avoidance tips. Below are tips that will keep you from becoming the next victim.

1.   Keep track of everything you do and keep important documents and records in a safe place.

2.   Photo copy everything and keep it save in a separate place from where you keep your original copies.

3.   Place an alert on your credit report if you are going to be traveling.

4.   Get a post office box and have all mail going to the box instead of your mail box.

5.   Consider getting a mail box with lock and key and a small slit to put mail in it and let your most important mail go to your PO box.

6.   Shred all unwanted mail using a powerful shredder. I recommended two powerful shredders at the beginning of this article.

7.   Consider using an identity theft stamp to stamp out all of your personal information on mail before you throw it away if you don’t have access to a shredder.

8.   If you ever become a victim fill out a form called Identity Theft Affidavit or visit this site www.consumer.gov/idtheft to file a report.

9.   Visit secure sites only.

1    Leave your social security card and other personal information you don’t need at home in a safe place.

If you follow these tips you will avoid becoming the next victim of identity theft.

To learn more identity theft avoidance Tips check out my free book “How You Can Protect Yourself Against Identity Theft”. There are important forms and websites that will help you if you ever become a victim plus more in depth information on how to protect yourself.