Identity Theft Safeguards
Preventing Identity Theft
The truth is that you probably cannot prevent criminals stealing from you, especially if you lose your handbag or wallet. But you can certainly take steps to minimise the problem.
- Do not carry any pin numbers with you! Apart from anything else if the criminal uses your pin number then the bank may accuse you of reporting a theft when you took the money out yourself!
- Do not throw away any paperwork with your name, address and other personal information on it without shredding it first.
- Beware of giving out any bank or cash receipts which may contain enough information for someone to take your identity and your money!
- Cut up all credit/debit/identity cards and avoid allowing people to piece them together.
- Some illegal cash transactions and purchases using credit cards are by family members. Do not leave bits of paper with pin numbers lying around!
- If you are burgled then check if they have taken accounts numbers, passwords etc.
- Keep passwords, identifiers etc securely. It is best if you can keep these papers in a safe or at least locked away.
Another option is to only keep this information in an encrypted form on a computer. Click the following link for a program which allows you to handle your passwords safely.
click here for a way to protect your Passwords
Giving out information to other people
No retail or financial company will ask you to click a link on an email to go to a webpage where you have to enter any details about yourself!
Neither will you ever be asked to follow an email link to a page that allows you to update your account details, or change your password, etc. If you want to change your account details then simply go to the appropriate organisation's website and follow the instructions that they give you. Never follow a link from an email, etc to go the website that you want. That link may point to a copy of the website which is controlled by thieves.
TIP: If you have an email with a link on it, check the link by holding the mouse over the link for a moment. The full address of the link will then appears on the screen or in the bar on the bottom of the page. If it is not the URL address of the company sending the email then it is a scam!
If you would like to contact a professional advisor for advice on your particular situation then click here and we will be in contact with you shortly.