Make sure that you keep as little identifying data on your person as possible. Do not walk around with your social security card, birth certificate or passport on a regular basis. These items do not belong in your purse or wallet. If you need to bring them into your place of employment or to get your driver's license, that is okay. However, make sure you remove these items from your wallet or purse as soon as possible, and do not routinely carry them with you. These are the key documents that are needed to steal your identity so you do not want to be walking around with them.
You have to be vigilant. If you see an item on your credit card statement that seems odd, question it immediately. Do not wait! One particular consumer saw a purchase made that she did not make. She knew it was odd because the currency was in Russian rubles, though the amount was less than one U.S. dollar. She called her credit card company and they immediately told her that the card data had been stolen. This was a typical way for thieves to test to see if the credit card was good or not. Once the small purchase was made and approved, the thief would begin racking up huge debts. This consumer was lucky that she acted so quickly. The credit card company canceled her card immediately and issued her a new one.
You can get a free credit report once a year from the credit reporting bureaus. This is a good way to see all of the open Credit Cards that are under your name. Cancel any cards that you have not used in six months. Having excessive amounts of Credit Cards can make you a likely candidate for identity theft because you probably don't even know which cards you have. Always cancel your Credit Cards in writing.
Also note that you need to get a copy of your credit report from each of the three major credit reporting bureaus. The reason for this is that some credit card companies report to one bureau, some report to others, but there are very few that report to all of them, so if a case of identity theft has occurred, you may not know about it if you only get a copy of your report from one bureau.
Make sure that you get all of the carbon copies of your receipts when you use your card at restaurants and gas stations. These are prime places where credit data can be stolen. There are sophisticated devices that can be bought just about anywhere that can copy the data that is contained on the magnetic stripe on the back of your card. With this data, anyone can steal your identity. If you can pay with cash at these places, you can cut down on the chances that your identity will be stolen.
Your computer also contains a lot of personal information on you. If you regularly shop on the internet, only shop at sites that have encrypted credit card information. Install anti-spyware on your computer to cut down on the possibility of thieves gaining access to the data on your computer. If you are giving away your computer, either remove the hard drive or do a complete system wipe and erase so that your personal data will be removed. Just deleting files is not enough. Your data is still there and people who want to will be able to find it.
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