The Many Perils Of Identity Theft
While we would love for our stereotype of the dumb criminal to be true, reality has taught us that there are simply some people who may be very intelligent and technologically gifted but are still criminals. The draw may be financial or simply for the challenge of testing their twisted minds against the establishment but the pain is the same. No matter how sophisticated the methods we employ to protect our data, there are those who bend all their will and energy into defeating them. It’s vital to completely understand how identity theft insurance works to circumvent becoming a victim.
With the advent of the digital era, things stepped up to an even more sinister level. Now crimes can be committed from anywhere in the world and you can become a victim without ever even knowing it or discovering it for a considerable period of time. Far from the Hollywood version where fun loving likable people commit victimless crimes against the establishment, people get hurt and can even lose more than money.
The same is true of all manner of identification validation. The driver license and passport which we use as proof positive of our identity have bar codes that can be scanned and once the data enters cyberspace, it is a target. The concept of placing equipment over automatic teller machines to gather the encoded data from the card as well as cameras to get the personal identification number has become a recurring threat.
Part of the problem is that the devices we use are so complex that their internal workings are simply not knowable to most of us. We can use them but we do not really know what is going inside the device while our credit and debit cards are being scanned. To keep from holding up progress, we often allow our cards out of our grasp and sight, specifically in restaurants, trusting the information is protected.
The theft of funds is the kind of identity crime that gets all the headlines but it may not be the most difficult to deal with. Imagine the complications a family can experience when their child reaches sixteen years old and his parents decide its time to open a checking account for him only to discover his credit is so bad they can not. If your son or daughter is the victim of identity theft, it can literally be more than a decade of foul play thrust upon them before you even discover it.
Once someone else has your identity, your accounts are an obvious concern but should not be the only ones. Your ability to make purchases can been affected as well as the interest rates you receive on credit cards and loans may be inflated. You may start getting calls from collection agencies, and unraveling those charges is extremely difficult because by then the protections afforded credit card purchasers is usually already gone.
No matter how it is accomplished, the aftermath of a stolen identity is a nightmare. On average, it takes more than six hundred man hours to untangle the confusing web of manipulation perpetrated by an identity thief and not all of it can be removed or restored. Learning all you can about identity theft prevention is one of the most important things you can do to safeguard your credit. But having a company like LifeLock Command Center to protect your personal information before the incident can happen can be invaluable. You should check out this LifeLock Command Center Coupon if you need any more convincing.
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