How to avoid and prevent Identity Theft
There have been alerts sent out by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) cautioning against the phishing scam. This has been issued to alert consumers regarding the emails that they receive, in which you are made to believe the facts as related in the email, and you get convinced to give away your personal financial details. The emails might provide you with a link which may take you to a replica of the website of your bank, where you will be required to give out your personal details. You are told that if you fail to furnish the details your account may be closed down. This is what is known as identity theft”.
If you are a victim of such a phishing email, the first thing you got to do is to file a report on the matter to your bank, and also to your local police station. In the event you have given out your credit card information, you would need to send the police report to three major credit card bureaus. Usually the bureaus take about three months to remove the disputed information from your records.
In addition to the police report, you would need to contact FTC (www.ftc.gov). Organizations, like the banks and other financial institutions, and creditors, along with FTC have developed what is known as “Id Theft affidavit”, which is a report to be filled up by you in order to close any unauthorized accounts and such debts which have been attached to your account wrongfully.
In future you would need to be careful in recognizing such emails coming into your inbox. You must understand that your bank and your credit card companies will never ask for your personal financial details, and therefore if you receive such emails, you should straight away report to the police, and other authorities and delete such emails from your inbox, without responding to them.
June 4th, 2008 at 9:07 am
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