We constantly hear about all of the things that we need to do to protect ourselves from identity theft. Are these warnings just meant to scare us or are we really in danger of having our identities stolen at any moment? Just how high is the risk of identity theft? For most people, the risk of identity theft is moderate. There is always some risk that your identity may be taken over by someone else. They may use your existing credit to make purchases on your credit cards or they may open new accounts in your name and run up debts that you aren’t even aware of. But there are things that you can do to increase or decrease your own risk of identity theft
The reality is that you are really only at as much risk of identity theft as you are willing to put yourself in. If you choose to take all of the precautions that you are warned to take to reduce identity theft, you do significantly lower your risk. These precautions include things like:
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Shred all of your credit card statements, receipts and other financial documents. This prevent someone form being able to see your financial information and use it to their own gain.• Get your credit report regularly. You can get one free credit report annually from each of the three credit reporting agencies. If you stagger these requests, this means you can get one report every four months. Skimming them lets you see if you’ve become an identity theft victim.
• Limiting the amount of information you place on your computer. You shouldn’t save passwords to your accounts. You shouldn’t access your credit card information from a Wi-Fi hot spot that has an unsecured connection.
These are all things that people do to protect themselves from identity theft. And they are all things that can help you to lower your risk of identity theft.
But what if you don’t do these things? How much risk are you in if you don’t shred your documents and you use unsecured hot spots when conducting online financial transactions? The answer varies depending upon your credit information and the areas around which you live and work. If you live in an area where computer crime rates are high, your risk is higher than in an area where they are low.
Basically, you just need to use common sense if you don’t want to have your identity stolen. If you don’t give out financial information to strangers, your risk of identity theft is fairly low. If you make sure that you always confirm that transactions taking place online are secure, your risk is relatively low.
Yes, there is a risk of identity theft. If you tempt people to steal your identity, there’s a chance that they might. But if you take the basic precautions that you are always hearing about which are designed to prevent identity theft then you should find that you risk of becoming a victim of this crime really isn’t very high at all.
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