People will say that Identity theft is not a big problem if you catch it early. Well, identity theft is not a problem at all if you catch it before it happens. This is the idea behind programs which only monitor your credit. The idea is that you have already taken care of your Identity, and locked down all of your information, before losing it becomes an issue. Most people, unfortunately, are still under the delusion that their information is secure.

However, here is the problem: Statistically speaking, the average person’s information is housed in over 50 databases (and judging by daily reports of database breaches, those databases aren’t necessarily very secure). So how can you have the issue taken care of, and know with 100% certainty that you have protected your information before a theft of your identity occurs?

There are two sides you must look at.

Prevention on the front-end, and a back-up plan for protection when Identity theft happens to you.

Ultimately, there are about 60 or 70 prevention steps that you should take just as a practical step for protecting your information. However, we all have things we should do, but don’t, and I would imagine that adding 60 or 70 new steps into your monthly routine isn’t exactly something you want to do.

So if you want a short list of a few things that would be the highest recommended steps to prevent/protect against Identity Theft, here are what those things would be.

Number one: Place a fraud alert on your credit accounts. You can contact any one of the three credit bureaus and tell them that you want to place a fraud alert and they will place it on your account for 90 days.

Now, you have to understand again that after 90 days, or in 90 days, they are going to drop off the alert, and you are going to have to call them again and place that again, so every 90 days (for the rest of your life), plan on making a phone call to at least one of the credit bureaus.

There are experts on Identity Theft who say that fraud alerts are not 100% effective. Those experts are absolutely right, because sometimes the bureaus don’t communicate with each other, sometimes they still give out credit even though a fraud alert is in place, and sometimes, someone at the credit bureau uses your information. . If the identity theft is taking place because of an inside job, whether it be a family member who knows everything about you, or someone else who knows how to take all of your information and use it, then you are absolutely right in agreeing with the critics when they say that fraud alerts could fail. So fraud alerts are not 100% effective.

Number two: If you live in a state that allows you to do a credit freeze, then do it. This is something you should especially do if you are a person who doesn’t care about having instant credit available, and if you aren’t doing a lot of purchasing right now. The bad thing with credit freezes is that you are not going to be able to use your information without “thawing” it out and then “refreezing” it, which also carries charges and paperwork.

Number three: Buy a shredder, a cross-cut shredder, and use it all you want. The shredding companies have financed many studies showing how shredding reduces identity theft. While there doesn’t seem to be any completely conclusive (and independent) evidence that shredding reduces identity theft, it’s just a good idea to make your information more difficult to obtain. If you can prevent your information from being accessible from the paperwork that you throw out, then that’s a good thing to do.

Number Four: Remove yourself from junk mail and offers for instant credit. Your mailbox does not need to be that cluttered, and you really do not need the credit card offers coming into your mailbox. If you want a certain catalogue, or fliers/coupons, stay on those lists, and keep doing business with people that you are already doing business with. But for unwanted residential mail, opt out through the Direct Marketing Association’s Mail Preference Service (MPS) Form (if you do it online it will cost you $1.) For stopping unwanted phone solicitations, opt out through the Do Not Call list (donotcall.gov), and finally, to protect your email inbox, add your email address to the blocked email addresses list.

(There is no such thing as the blocked email addresses list, but wouldn’t it be nice if there were?)

In case you couldn’t tell, this article is a bit of a s

Prevention on the front-end, and a back-up plan for protection when Identity theft happens to you.

Ultimately, there are about 60 or 70 prevention steps that you should take just as a practical step for protecting your information. However, we all have things we should do, but don’t, and I would imagine that adding 60 or 70 new steps into your monthly routine isn’t exactly something you want to do.

So if you want a short list of a few things that would be the highest recommended steps to prevent/protect against Identity Theft, here are what those things would be.

Number one: Place a fraud alert on your credit accounts. You can contact any one of the three credit bureaus and tell them that you want to place a fraud alert and they will place it on your account for 90 days.

Now, you have to understand again that after 90 days, or in 90 days, they are going to drop off the alert, and you are going to have to call them again and place that again, so every 90 days (for the rest of your life), plan on making a phone call to at least one of the credit bureaus.

There are experts on Identity Theft who say that fraud alerts are not 100% effective. Those experts are absolutely right, because sometimes the bureaus don’t communicate with each other, sometimes they still give out credit even though a fraud alert is in place, and sometimes, someone at the credit bureau uses your information. . If the identity theft is taking place because of an inside job, whether it be a family member who knows everything about you, or someone else who knows how to take all of your information and use it, then you are absolutely right in agreeing with the critics when they say that fraud alerts could fail. So fraud alerts are not 100% effective.

Number two: If you live in a state that allows you to do a credit freeze, then do it. This is something you should especially do if you are a person who doesn’t care about having instant credit available, and if you aren’t doing a lot of purchasing right now. The bad thing with credit freezes is that you are not going to be able to use your information without “thawing” it out and then “refreezing” it, which also carries charges and paperwork.

Number three: Buy a shredder, a cross-cut shredder, and use it all you want. The shredding companies have financed many studies showing how shredding reduces identity theft. While there doesn’t seem to be any completely conclusive (and independent) evidence that shredding reduces identity theft, it’s just a good idea to make your information more difficult to obtain. If you can prevent your information from being accessible from the paperwork that you throw out, then that’s a good thing to do.

Number Four: Remove yourself from junk mail and offers for instant credit. Your mailbox does not need to be that cluttered, and you really do not need the credit card offers coming into your mailbox. If you want a certain catalogue, or fliers/coupons, stay on those lists, and keep doing business with people that you are already doing business with. But for unwanted residential mail, opt out through the Direct Marketing Association’s Mail Preference Service (MPS) Form (if you do it online it will cost you $1.) For stopping unwanted phone solicitations, opt out through the Do Not Call list (donotcall.gov), and finally, to protect your email inbox, add your email address to the blocked email addresses list.

(There is no such thing as the blocked email addresses list, but wouldn’t it be nice if there were?)

In case you couldn’t tell, this article is a bit of a

There are experts on Identity Theft who say that fraud alerts are not 100% effective. Those experts are absolutely right, because sometimes the bureaus don’t communicate with each other, sometimes they still give out credit even though a fraud alert is in place, and sometimes, someone at the credit bureau uses your information. . If the identity theft is taking place because of an inside job, whether it be a family member who knows everything about you, or someone else who knows how to take all of your information and use it, then you are absolutely right in agreeing with the critics when they say that fraud alerts could fail. So fraud alerts are not 100% effective.

Number two: If you live in a state that allows you to do a credit freeze, then do it. This is something you should especially do if you are a person who doesn’t care about having instant credit available, and if you aren’t doing a lot of purchasing right now. The bad thing with credit freezes is that you are not going to be able to use your information without “thawing” it out and then “refreezing” it, which also carries charges and paperwork.

Number three: Buy a shredder, a cross-cut shredder, and use it all you want. The shredding companies have financed many studies showing how shredding reduces identity theft. While there doesn’t seem to be any completely conclusive (and independent) evidence that shredding reduces identity theft, it’s just a good idea to make your information more difficult to obtain. If you can prevent your information from being accessible from the paperwork that you throw out, then that’s a good thing to do.

Number Four: Remove yourself from junk mail and offers for instant credit. Your mailbox does not need to be that cluttered, and you really do not need the credit card offers coming into your mailbox. If you want a certain catalogue, or fliers/coupons, stay on those lists, and keep doing business with people that you are already doing business with. But for unwanted residential mail, opt out through the Direct Marketing Association’s Mail Preference Service (MPS) Form (if you do it online it will cost you $1.) For stopping unwanted phone solicitations, opt out through the Do Not Call list (donotcall.gov), and finally, to protect your email inbox, add your email address to the blocked email addresses list.

(There is no such thing as the blocked email addresses list, but wouldn’t it be nice if there were?)

In case you couldn’t tell, this article is a bit of a

Number three: Buy a shredder, a cross-cut shredder, and use it all you want. The shredding companies have financed many studies showing how shredding reduces identity theft. While there doesn’t seem to be any completely conclusive (and independent) evidence that shredding reduces identity theft, it’s just a good idea to make your information more difficult to obtain. If you can prevent your information from being accessible from the paperwork that you throw out, then that’s a good thing to do.

Number Four: Remove yourself from junk mail and offers for instant credit. Your mailbox does not need to be that cluttered, and you really do not need the credit card offers coming into your mailbox. If you want a certain catalogue, or fliers/coupons, stay on those lists, and keep doing business with people that you are already doing business with. But for unwanted residential mail, opt out through the Direct Marketing Association’s Mail Preference Service (MPS) Form (if you do it online it will cost you $1.) For stopping unwanted phone solicitations, opt out through the Do Not Call list (donotcall.gov), and finally, to protect your email inbox, add your email address to the blocked email addresses list.

(There is no such thing as the blocked email addresses list, but wouldn’t it be nice if there were?)

In case you couldn’t tell, this article is a bit of a

Number Four: Remove yourself from junk mail and offers for instant credit. Your mailbox does not need to be that cluttered, and you really do not need the credit card offers coming into your mailbox. If you want a certain catalogue, or fliers/coupons, stay on those lists, and keep doing business with people that you are already doing business with. But for unwanted residential mail, opt out through the Direct Marketing Association’s Mail Preference Service (MPS) Form (if you do it online it will cost you $1.) For stopping unwanted phone solicitations, opt out through the Do Not Call list (donotcall.gov), and finally, to protect your email inbox, add your email address to the blocked email addresses list.

(There is no such thing as the blocked email addresses list, but wouldn’t it be nice if there were?)

In case you couldn’t tell, this article is a bit of a satire. Every recommendation above carries with it some good advice, but also is not practical advice for the vast majority of people today. There are simply too many drawbacks or inconveniences associated with each method of protecting your information. Shredding is perhaps the only sound piece of advice above that doesn’t inconvenience people in large ways.

So what’s your backup plan? An Identity Theft back-up plan is something that is covered more in-depth in other articles from IdentityTheftSecrets, but if you become a victim of Identity Theft, you’re going to want an attorney, a fraud restoration specialist, a private investigator, and an individual with ties into the law enforcement system in order to get your issue resolved (and to call when your information is used again in the future).

This is because when it comes to identity theft, the biggest problem for most people is the time and frustration that you have to go through to try and fix the problem.

In your backup plan, you want your team already set up and established in advance. When you become a victim, they can be spending all the time and all the money necessary to fix your problem, without you having to do much, if any, of the work.

Could you fix your identity theft problem yourself? Absolutely. But for the average person, the above “solutions” are inconvenient, and are band-aids on a much larger problem.

If you are like most people, when you become a victim of identity theft, you will not want to have to do the work of restoring your information on your own.