A deep understanding on how your identity and personal effects can be stolen will help us prepare and arm ourselves against anything they may pose a serious threat to our valued resources.
Of course, it would always help to "know the terrain" if you want to defeat your enemy.
And here are some traditional methods that criminal uses for their identity theft crimes: 1.
Stealing your wallets or purses.
This is like one of the oldest crimes that criminals pull off to gain financial rewards at the expense of another individual.
More often than not, people keep a lot of valuable information about themselves in their wallet.
In their wallet or purses, they keep their credit cards, social security card, other Ids, birth certificates and other identifying documents.
When another individual gets access to these documents, you are in serious trouble unless the other person is just after your money and plans to burn the rest of your wallet afterwards.
2.
Intercepting your mail and scouring your garbage bins.
Identity theft can also happen if you don't put enough attention to your mailbox and the various mails that they contain.
Every week, individual consumers receive at least three pre-approved credit card applications and at least two junk mails from different companies offering their services.
You get a monthly credit card statement and as for your bank statement, unless requested, they can also be provided monthly.
These correspondences that you receive in your mail contain a lot of valuable information about you, especially the pre-approved credit card applications.
As more and more people consider these as junk mails, they often end up in the garbage unread, un-shredded and unopened.
Your garbage bin then becomes a huge free trade marketplace for your personal information that criminals can gain access to perpetrate their identity theft activities.
3.
Shoulder skimming.
You always need to cover your hand while you key in your PIN number in any ATM transaction.
You will never know when another person is peeking from your shoulder hoping to see your ATM number and they PIN that you pressed.
You have to be very careful with ATM transactions as a lot of people have been victimized by identity theft while they were performing transactions over the ATM machine.
4.
Having "inside" sources to buy personal information.
An identity thief might get your information from a waiter who serves your table.
When you pay using your credit card, they take your card and swipe it into their machine.
Little do you know that the waiter either has another swiping machine where they swipe your credit card and store your information, or he or she has a good memory that immediately memorizes your number.
Either way, you have to be very careful in dealing with people who handle your credit cards.