Tips & Tricks Online

Criminals are becoming more creative in how they steal your identity. Bravery is not a requirement anymore, nor is guns and knives or any physical harm. It could be your neighbor or a person you pass in the mall. From mail theft to account invasion to dumpster diving, whatever the system, the end result is the same: An innocent person like you is ripped off.

Think about this for a moment; a very low-tech method use by thieves to commit identity theft is stealing mail. Thieves have been stealing mail out of unsecured mail boxes for years; but it has only been in the recent years that thieves have come to realize there is a profit to be gained from the financial information they can get. Mail theft happens most of the time, according to statistics, at places where unprotected and easy accessible mailboxes are - these are mailboxes without a lock and in public places.

Thieves can and do, via outgoing stolen mail, get enough valuable information to open a new account under the victim’s name. They can take pre-approved credit card application, change the address to a new address, and then send it in. They can steal a credit card statement, lift the account number, and buy goods or services. Or a thief can watch your incoming mail for a new credit card or ATM card, steal it, and charge thousands of dollars to it in one afternoon.

Drive through virtually any neighborhood, and you see window stickers and signs stuck in lawns warning potential thieves that the occupants have a high-tech security alarm ready to sound at the first jimmied door or window. But yet, these same security minded people raise the flag on their mailboxes and set out their trash at night, not thinking or knowing the danger they have put themselves in. The virtual payday for the theft has been provided - unknowingly by the soon to be victim.