How to avoid identity theft?

[mikerkas78]

Identity theft happens both online and offline. One of the ways that identity thieves collect personal and financial information about members of the public offline, is to sift through carelessly discarded trash. Many people throw bank statements, utility bills and other potentially sensitive documentation away without shredding it first. An identity thief can find enough about someone - just from their dustbin or mailbox - to steal their identity. Identity thieves steal personal and financial information online more purposely, with phishing attempts for example - but it is often as a result of carelessness and/or complacency, regarding personal and financial information.

However In the near future, almost everything will be online, all the transactions, purchases, reservations, even work. But there is a big problem; the ¨Online Thieves¨. People have to be really aware of this issue, because it´s becoming America's fastest growing crime problem. How to identify an identity theft? and how to avoid it?? Big question! here some advise:

* Avoid questionable Web sites
* Practice safe email protocol:
* Don't open messages from unknown senders
* Immediately delete messages you suspect to be spam
* Use public computers with extreme caution

Another important step in avoiding online identity theft is making sure that you have the best security software products installed on your PC:

* Use antivirus protection and a firewall
* Get antispyware software protection

Good Luck And Be Safe!

[bmielke]

Give me a -S-
Give me a -P-
Give me an -A-
Give me a -M-

What do we have SPAM! SPAM! SPAM!

Spamming's not nice take it elsewhere.

[bmielke]

If you need anti-virius protection AVG and Malwarebytes are two good free programs, this guy is just a spammer, and possibly a scammer.

[webhick]

Why would I want to avoid it? I let some punk steal my identity every twenty years or so just so I can reinvent myself.

[JamesVincent]

Why would I want to avoid it? I let some punk steal my identity every twenty years or so just so I can reinvent myself.

I sometimes wish someone would steal mine. They might improve my credit!

[Guy]

You must avoid giving out personal information over the phone, in emails and through the mail unless it is very secure. Even with sending personal information in an email, spy-ware or computer viruses might pick this up. Be sure to have a secure connection, a firewall, malware and virus protection on your computers.

[fortinbras]

Admittedly this is not the usual Quatlos topic, but I think a little reminder to practice safe cybernetics is appreciated.

Quatlos has collected tons of examples of internet frauds, mostly from make-believe lotteries and inheritances, and several of those Nigerian scams that demonstrate that there's always free cheese in a mousetrap.

There are a good many high quality anti-virus programs available for free. I suggest going to CNET.com and ZDNet.com and MajorGeeks.com as these are sources for downloading freeware already known to be both safe and effective. I particularly liked MalwareBytes and 360 Amigo. MalwareBytes helped cure the worst virus I ever encountered - the dreaded "Antivirus2010" * (maybe by now it's changed its name, it used to be Antivirus2009), which pops up pretending to be generated by your own Windows system, telling you you've been infected with a virus and then pretending to run a scan while, in fact, it's loading itself into your system with a sort of thugware that won't let you do anything on the internet unless and until you pay them about $50 online immediately. But it is necessary to have MalwareBytes on your system first, because once Antivirus2010 takes hold you won't be able to download anything.

------ * (about Antivirus2010, as I wouldn't ask you to go looking on your own for something so dangerous):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antivirus_2009
http://www.xp-vista.com/remove/antivirus-2010
http://www.pcworld.com/article/171216/w ... _2010.html

[Nikki]

Remember always practice safe hex.

[lyfbond]

* Avoid questionable Web sites
* Practice safe email protocol:
* Don't open messages from unknown senders
* Immediately delete messages you suspect to be spam
* Use public computers with extreme caution

Another important step in avoiding online identity theft is making sure that you have the best security software products installed on your PC:

* Use antivirus protection and a firewall
* Get antispyware software protection

though this guy is a spammer but i like the information posted. So true that online scam are very rampant and getting larger and larger which people should be careful about.

[Elmware]

One advice that was given to me was to never carry around your Birth Certificate and S.S.N./S.I.N. card in your wallet. With those two pieces of ID, they can even have a picture ID such as a passport made in your name with their picture on it.

[CrankyBoomer]

Hi, I didn't think it was worth creating another thread but I've signed up to a handful of what I think are called 'beer money' sites to boost my pension a little. I don't think there is anything wrong with the sites of themselves but quite a few are mainly 'survey' sites. Some of the questions seem very nosy - want to know one's postcode and even actual address sometimes - though one is of course free to withdraw from a survey in such a case. The people running the surveys do have terms and conditions and privacy terms but these days with so much data being stored 'in the cloud' I'm somewhat fearful of my data being hacked. Then there are the 'get paid to' sites where one can do microtasks. I've done a few of those - some were click on a website, click on x number of pages and stay on an advert for z number of seconds. To be fair I don't think it was necessarily the people posting the microtasks, it might have been the folk posting the ad, but a couple of times after clicking on ads I've had some annoying pop-ups telling me that my computer had become infected.* Thanks to a relevant YouTube video I was able to get rid of the irritating malware. I appreciate that most of the folks on Quatloos are some years my junior and therefore most likely have full-time jobs so aren't looking around for ways to add to their pensions but I thought I'd let it be known that the potential to get one's computer/laptop infected is out there.

* Strictly speaking I suppose the pop-ups were telling the truth - my machine was infected by them. Again, I hasten to say that I think it was an ad that was infected rather than the GPT site or the task poster being malicious but however it arose it's annoying. One person didn't approve a microtask I did saying he/she didn't believe I was from the UK!!! I couldn't be fussed to argue over what was just a few cents. Looking at an earlier post on this thread from back in 2012 about carrying round your birth certificate (not that I do) I loaded up a facsimile of my driving licence to the GPT to prove my identity. That's another thing to worry about in case anybody hacked the site (though as stated before I think the site itself is legitimate).