Internet identity theft is a concern, or should be a concern for anyone who surfs the Internet or transacts business online. As more people become comfortable shopping online, the opportunity for internet identity theft increases. Every block that is established to protect a person’s identity, another breach is made enabling a dishonest person to steal their identity.

In some of the most prolific scams of internet identity theft involve someone simply being asked for their information and, as unfortunate as it may be, some people willingly provide the necessary information to allow someone to steal their identification. A name, social security number and an address is basically all that is needed to assume someone’s financial identity.

Phishing is probably the most common scam helping crooks in their quest for internet identity theft and once they have the needed information; there is virtually no limit to what they can steal from you. When phishing, an unwitting victim will receive what appears to be a legitimate email from a business with which they deal. A claim may be made that your information has been compromised and you should sign into your account and verify your information has not been compromised.

Do Not Help Scammers Steal From You

There will be a convenient link provided to visit to check for compromised information. The web page you are taken to will be a very good duplicate of the real business’ page, but if you look at the link closely, there will be part of a name that is not part of the business name. To help reduce to odds of internet identity theft, you should never go to a web page from an email claiming to need information. Simple close the email and sign onto the web page through its own address. TIP: NEVER, ever ,click on an email link but type in the url or web address directly in your browser.

If you do go through a link and give up personal information, the person effecting the internet identity theft can then access your account information, open new accounts and change your mailing address online and it may be days or even months before you know something is wrong. If no credit card bill arrives for a month or so you may consider yourself lucky in not owning anything until you go to use your charge account and find out it has been cancelled because it was maxed out and closed for lack of payment. However, if you catch yourself in time, call your credit card company immediately and cancel your card. Some scammers may wait longer than a month to start charging you and may do a little at a time. TIP: Call your credit card company immediately if you catch yourself too late and have already entered your credit card information on a fake website.

You may at that time also find out about other charges in your name that you knew nothing about as they were opened for you as a victim of this crime and it can take a long time to get everything straightened out. 

One recommendation, whether or not you transact business online, is to periodically check your credit history.

Internet identity theft is a real problem and you should always think twice when entering credit card information, id, passwords, or other personal information online to make sure the site is a ligitimate site.  

tags: credit reports identity theft internet identity theft online identity theft phishing