Your Home Is Where Your Identity Is…
Posted on | November 7, 2006 |
I keep hearing about more and more cases of identity theft from my friends and family.
My friend who recently moved to Denver noticed fraudulent charges on her account only a week after she arrived! She thinks her credit card numbers were stolen after purchasing items online on her home computer.
With all the latest spyware and virus technology, it’s necessary to practice identity theft prevention at home.
Why? Often your home computer doesn’t have the firewall and virus protection that your work computer might, so it’s important to make home computer security a regular routine.
Here’s a few tips I’ve put into practice:
- I try to remember to run my virus-scanning and spyware software at least once a week. Make sure that it’s activated and up-to-date, too!
- I now use my credit card instead of my debit card when shopping online (you’ll only be held responsible for $50 worth of fraudulent charges with a credit card).
- I’ve updated my banking and e-mail passwords to now have letters, numbers and symbols (i.e. K34!$25M) for extra security.
While the tips won’t be foolproof, at least they give me a little extra peace of mind!
Have your own ID theft tips or stories? E-mail me!
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One Response to “Your Home Is Where Your Identity Is…”
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November 20th, 2006 @ 1:36 pm
The biggest pain with identity theft is the time it takes to clear your own name. I’ve had my purse stolen three times and the third time was a nightmare of ID theft. The person went to liquor stores, fast food restaurants and clothing stores. Lots of new accounts were opened at the clothing stores (many seem to offer 10-15% off your purchase if you open a cc account). Nothing was ever charged that was so large it called attention to itself - but lots of ’smaller charges’ added up to hundreds and hundreds of dollars. I stopped everything, the got the mail about how my account has been canceled at these stores. It took about three months to straighten it all out.