As more and more purchases are now being done online nowadays, identity or I.D. theft is now on the increase. Identity theft is reported to be the fastest growing white collar crime in the US.
Identity theft can take the form of hacking where hackers penetrate or hack into the databases of organisations such as banks that do their business online to steal people's passwords and other personal details. They then use the details and passwords to defraud the people concerned. This kind of fraud is of course difficult to prevent for laymen like you and me because of the sophistication of such attacks. And in most cases any losses can easily be recovered from most organisations such as banks unless you as the client was at fault which is rare. We however as individuals need to continuously monitor our bank accounts or other online accounts for any unusual transactions so that we can alert the authorities in time.
There is however another form of identity theft where the con-men trick you into providing your personal details and passwords which they then use to defraud you. This is something that if you take the necessary precautions can be avoided. For instance there is no reason why you should disclose your passwords to anyone. No one should under any circumstances disclose his or her password to anyone. If you receive a call from any organisation where the caller asks you to provide details that should reasonably be under their custody, you need to be suspicious and report such issues to the organisations.
The video below presents steps you can take for Credit protection and ID theft. The presenter is Cordell Thomas MBA, a financial expert.
