Identity Theft Check

There are many different methods used by fraudsters to acquire personal information about you. Quite often they’ll play on human weaknesses and who doesn’t have a weakness for bargains?

Discount vouchers are a great way of getting cheaper products and services, but be wary as to where they come from. Many discount vouchers come free with magazines or are handed out at events. Discount codes are often available on websites and these can be entered at the checkout point when buying online.

However, you may find discount codes being sent to your inbox. This is okay if the sender is authentic, but on some occasions, they may not be. If you are offered discount vouchers only after registering or handing over personal information, this is a good chance that this is an attempt to illegally gather information about you.

There are occasions when a genuine organisation might require or ask for your details. If you have gone directly to the company’s homepage and found the discount vouchers from there, you can safely assume that there are no problems. However, if you have clicked a link in an email, there is every chance that you aren’t on the company’s real website, in which case you should avoid entering any personal details whatsoever.

The more our lives become enhanced by technology, the easier they become, the more susceptible to identity theft we are. It’s a sad fact that the majority of people in the UK will at some point become victims of ID theft, even if they never even realise it. It may be something large scale such as having money taken from your bank account, or things like unsecured loans or credit cards applied for in your name. It happens on a daily basis, and unless you take steps to minimise the risks of IF theft you’ll become a victim, and not even know it.

To minimise the chances of becoming a victim you need to take the following advice:

If you have multiple credit cards, as many of us do, keep a list of the cards you have, together with contact details for the banks that supplied them, so that should you lose them you can cancel them quickly. When you’re out, don’t carry all of your cards with you at once. Just take one or two with you, because if you lose your wallet or purse you don’t want to lose all of them at once.

You should also get a credit report every year to see what loans and cards have been applied for in your name.