Do you know anyone who has become a victim of identity theft? Some of us may feel that since we are not victims of this crime (or at least, don’t know that we are victims) that everything will be ok, however, by talking to someone we know who has been victimized, we might feel very differently about not taking steps to protect our credit.

Protecting our credit is so simple to do, especially with services like LifeLock that can help if we don’t want to do all of the work ourselves. Many do not do so because they think that everything is ok without it. Their bank account balance looks right. Credit card statements reflect only purchases they authorized and no collection letters or calls have been received to show that their data has been compromised.

Those whose identity has been stolen feel violated, and the time it takes to straighten out credit and to prove that they did not make certain purchases or apply for loans is too long to record. Doing all you can to protect your credit is good, but may not be enough if you use credit cards at restaurants or provide your social security number to doctors, car dealerships, hospitals, etc. The theft of electronic record data is very popular and businesses who keep your personal information in their computer are at risk of hackers stealing the data from them. Sometimes they are aware and sometimes they are not.

What can you do? Keep on top of constantly monitoring your credit. LifeLock offers several services and all of them were created to help you do just that. Who do you know whose identity has been stolen? We hope it’s not you! Be aware that you can inform others of ways to protect themselves as well. Share helpful information that you find online with others.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 16th, 2009 at 6:00 am and is filed under Articles Concerning Identity Theft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.