One key to establishing and keeping a great Credit profile is preventing access to your personal  information. 

There are basic free tools and social behaviors you can adopt to to mitigate your own personal fraud risk. 

There were 16.7M Victims of Identity theft in USA in 2018 representing nearly ~5% of consumers in the USA. Fraud generated a $16 Billion Dollars in financial loss to banks In 2019. (Javelin Research) This provides an enormous market opportunity for enterprising Criminal Gangs, State Actors (Foreign Governments), and individuals. 

There are many strategies used to commit fraud and access personal information but the most dangerous and common tactic is “social engineering”. This is essentially tricking individuals into disclosing their private information. 

Free Tip 1: Start a Zero Trust social policy. Do not disclose your personal information through an insecure channel. No legitimate agency will ever contact you to ask for your information. It is always better to be safe than sorry. Trust a bad actor can have dire consequences for your financial future. 

Tip 2: Basic Operational Security: Buy a Shredder with a card Slot. You will use this to regularly shred any documents that contain your personal information. I also recommend purchasing a Safe to secure your personal information documents like passports/SSN card.

“Familiar Fraud” happens when you are defrauded by an individual close to you. It is important to not leave important information accessible to any bad actor.

(Free Version of Tip 2: Hide your documents in a place only you know - collect any documents with sensitive information and safely burn them in a regular weekly or biweekly cycle)

 

These tips above can help, but it is harder to protect against third party access to data as Data Breaches have become more common (Equifax, Yahoo, Capital One). This Information is sold on the Dark Web. 

Have you ever been breached? - Check out this website haveibeenpwned.com

Digital breaches highlight the ability for Americans to monitor your credit profile regularly. See Credit Tip #1: How to Analyze Credit Report for more information on how to manually monitor your credit accounts for free.  

If you aren't interested in learning manual monitoring  - consider a monthly subscription to LifeLock. I provide an offer to readers - 25% off their monthly subscription. Click the Link below to see the full offer. 

Up to 25% off the first year of your LifeLock membership – Terms apply. 

Source : Javelin Strategy https://www.javelinstrategy.com/coverage-area/2020-identity-fraud-study-genesis-identity-fraud-crisis