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1. CRIME PREVENTION
7 Tips on Preventing
Identity Theft
NewsUSA
(NU) - In the course of the
day, you do many activities that
put your personal information at
risk — from writing a check at
the store to charging merchandise
in person or over the phone. You
may not think twice about these
transactions, but others might.
Identity theft — when a per-
petrator assumes someone’s iden-
tity for personal or financial gain,
like stealing a credit card to make NU
financial transactions in the vic-
tim’s name — is the fastest-grow- • Remove all documents with
ing crime in America. personal information from your
According to the U.S. Postal hard drive before discarding your
Inspection Service, there were al- computer or sending it in for re-
most 10 million cases of identity pair.
theft in 2004, which cost con- • Shred discarded documents,
sumers $5 billion. including preapproved credit card
The National Citizens’ Crime applications, bank statements,
Prevention Campaign, sponsored store receipts and utility bills.
by the National Crime Prevention “Dumpster divers” can gain ac-
Council, aims to educate con- cess to your personal information
sumers about what they can do to if such items are thrown in the
prevent identity theft. The coun- trash.
cil offers the following tips. • Cancel all credit cards that
• Do not give out your per- have not been used in the last six
sonal information unless you ini- months. Open credit is a prime
tiate the contact or know the per- target for thieves.
son or company with whom you • Order your credit report at
are dealing. Also, never disclose least twice a year and report any
personal information, such as a mistakes to the credit reporting
Social Security number or bank agency in writing.
account number, in response to an If you are a victim of identity
email. Legitimate businesses will theft, contact your local police
not ask you to do this. department as soon as possible.
• Do not disclose your credit If your identity was stolen in one
card number to an online vendor jurisdiction but used in another,
unless it is encrypted and the site you may have to report the crime
is secure. Look at the first part of in both jurisdictions.
the Web address on your brows- To learn more about prevent-
er. It should read “https://.” ing identity theft, visit the Na-
• Do not write your Social Se- tional Crime Prevention Council’s
curity number or telephone number Web sites at www.weprevent.org
on checks or credit card receipts. and www.ncpc.org.