Identity Theft and Your Bank Balance

LifeLock Identity Theft Prevention - Save 10%

Identity theft has become so common because of the ease of making transactions and ease of getting people’s confidential information. Being a victim of an identity theft scam costs you more than just money. Its very time consuming and an extremely tedious exercise to sort out.

Within one week I know four people, my colleagues, who are victims of identity theft scam.

Their Identity Documents have duplicates with their perpetrators who opened credit cards and had access to their bank accounts.

The serious challenge is proving that you are the real Soso to your bank when you go to inform them you are a victim. Remember Soso2 may also claim she is the real Soso, and this involves court cases and a total waste of your time.

Prevention of Identity Theft

As they say “better safe than sorry”, its in your best interest to keep your identity to yourself. It’s easy to be carried away and giving information though insecure media methods. Never give your details to the site with a URL that doesn’t start with a “https:”. This means the website has security measures in place.

You may be tempted to innocently give away more than just a first name in your favourite blogs. It is never completely safe. However the internet has revolutionised globalisation. We will never totally avoid using it; otherwise we cannot effective do business.

Some of us have our Identity Document copies in public spaces. In your office desk, in the unlocked drawers, ect. Its safer to shred your important documents other than just throwing them away.

Keep in touch with all your personal documents. Your bank account statements, policy documents, marriage and birth certificates, etc. keep track of your bank balance and keep it in check as often as you possibly can.

When you are the victim of an identity theft scam

Identity theft has happened to the most careful and intelligent of us. Its just one of those things that happen when you least expect. When it happens you need to act as fast as you can. And take the following steps:

call your bank and freeze all your accounts. You cant afford to lose any more money that you already have.

Report the incidence to the police. You’ll need this when you have to prove its not you who’ve been swipping your way to hundreds of thousands of overdraft.
Demand to see the copy of the Identity Document the unknown identity thief is using on her fraudulent actions.
Get the fraud ID copy verified by the ministry concerned. They can check if they issued it with the dates and bar codes. Being part of this process helps you stay updated of the process.

Let your family members check their own bank accounts and other accounts that could be broken into as well. Just in case the perpetrator stole your identity from your home together with other people’s.

Be sure to change your accounts and even relocate them to new institutions.
Stay careful.

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