Identity theft is a blanket term that covers fraudulent and even suspicious action through bank accounts and criminal databases. It is a violation of getting the financial or personal data of a person with the sole objective of feigning that person's name or identity to make purchases or transactions.
Certain identity thieves look out for credit card and bank account statements to probe through trash bins. On the other hand, some criminals can apply more high-tech techniques to access customer's data lists from corporate databases.
The identity thieves can damage a credit rating and the status of a person or other personal information after accumulating the data. There is a variety of identity theft that can affect you differently.
What are the Effects of Identity Theft on You?
Several scams are possible once your data is breached that are as follows:
- Obtain your financial accounts and withdraw your money.
- Register fraudulent health insurance claims.
- Open false credit cards.
- Use your current credit card or bank account for making illegal transactions.
- Steal your tax refund or file a swindling tax return.
- Perform child identity theft by mishandling information of your child.
- Sell the obtained data to other robbers.
Types of Identity Theft
- Financial Identity Theft: It's the most common theft in which somebody takes your information or identity to receive goods, services, benefits, or credit.
- Criminal Identity Theft: An identity thief deceives himself as another person during the arrest in an attempt to dodge summons, conviction, or arrest.
- Medical Identity Theft: An identity thief distinguishes himself as you for getting free medical care.
- Synthetic Identity Theft: A robber steals money from credit card lenders or organizations who prolonged credit through the fake identity.
- High-Tech Identity Theft: Criminals frequently use computer technology to gather personal data for identity swindle.
How can You Protect Yourself from Identity Theft?
You can protect yourself from all types of identity theft. For this, you have to monitor the accuracy of personal records regularly and deal with any discrepancies immediately.
You can also take assistance from identity theft service providers who offer products to assist you in avoiding and decreasing the consequences of identity theft. Such services generally give data to help you in protecting your personal data as well as monitor public and private documents, including credit reports. In this way, the service provider can warn their clients of any transaction and status alterations.
The firm offers support to a person to resolve their predicaments connected with identity theft. Besides, some nonprofit organizations, as well as government agencies, give similar support using tools and information to help you evade and report identity theft events at an appropriate time.
Final Words...
If you are contemplating yourself lucky enough not to become the victim of identity theft or a data breach, don't be surprised if you run out of luck next time. In recent years, the number of data breach victims has increased a lot.
Identity theft can lead to your credit damage, immediate financial loss, and emotional distress, relying on the sort of scam that befalls on you and how the offender utilizes your data. Moreover, it can range somewhere from a day to many months or even years to fix the problem.
Hence, even if there is a hint of fraud, you need to safeguard your valuable information and respond promptly.