SolveYourProblem Article Series: Online Shopping
Teach Me To Shop Smarter Online
How
To Protect Your Identity While Shopping Online
According to the Federal Trade Commission
(FTC), identify theft, both online and offline is one of the
“fastest-growing crimes in the United States” with the number
of reported incidences quadrupling from the year 2000 to 2004.
For the majority of identity theft victims the problem has
been credit card account hijackings but in other cases it has
been much more serious and much more detrimental for the individuals.
The FTC estimates that approximately ten million people in
the past five years have fallen victim to identity theft in
the form of criminals applying for mortgages or credit cards
under their names, criminals using the victims’ credit cards
and criminals securing utility services. Taken to its extreme,
identity theft can destroy an individual’s credit rating, reputation
and even erode their sense of comfort and security. Let’s take
a brief look at ways to go about protecting your identity when
you shop online.
If
you are sent unsolicited e-mail from a company that you
have shopped with in the past, never click on any links or
images in the message. If you do then you are only asking for
trouble. If a company sends you an e-mail and wants you to
contact them for any reason at all, always open a new browser
window and then proceed to type in the web address of the business
and log in to your shopping account to find out what the situation
is. Realize that criminals sometime send e-mails under the
guise of legitimate businesses to obtain the personal information
of its customers. You might even want to give the business
a call if an e-mail appears suspicious. It would be a good
idea to find an excellent spam filter to ensure that phishing
e-mail messages do not have the opportunity to reach you at
all.
Make sure that your Social
Security number remains as private
as it possibly can be. When you open a new account at a website
you wish to shop at, do not allow any part of your SSN to be
used as your identification number or your account number.
As well keep all passwords to any of your bank accounts or
online accounts private. Don’t leave around a piece of paper
on your desk with the sensitive information.
Always
keep all of your credit card information on CD-RWS as opposed
to on the hard drive of your computer. Never leave
the discs in a drive when the computer is not in use. Instead
save the CDs in a safe, secure place that only you are aware
of. If it is necessary for you to save sensitive personal information
such as credit card numbers on the hard drive then install
a program such as “Password Agent” to help ensure safety and
security. Password Agent has both a free version, which is
limited but also an unlimited version that costs $20.00
Whenever you make an online credit purchase, always carefully
review all of your charges to ensure that you definitely did
buy what the records are showing you bought. Go over your records
with a fine toothcomb and if you need to dispute a charge,
contact your credit card company right away. Be aware that
often criminals operating online will sometimes make small
purchases over a particular span of time so they are less likely
to be detected right away.
Many of the major credit bureaus offer a credit monitoring
service which is definitely a good investment for anyone who
shops online. To use an example, the credit bureau, TransUnion
has an “Identity Fraud Watch” service that on a weekly basis
sends out e-mails to consumers to make them aware of any modifications
that have been made to their credit report or profile. TransUnion
charges $44.00 per year for this service but it is worth the
money. Other credit bureaus such as Equifax and Experian also
have a similar system in place although Equifax charges an
annual fee of $100.00 while Experian charges $120.00. There
are some states, such as California and Texas, consumers can
request where credit freezes. What this means is that a potential
creditor can only access your credit report with your permission.
Every time this is done it costs you money however. It costs
eight dollars for a potential creditor to look at your credit
report and then ten dollars to freeze the report after that.
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SolveYourProblem.com
: 2008
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