Avoiding Holiday Identity Theft

Just like most retail businesses count on holiday spending to make their profits soar every year, identity thieves function the same way.  According to the FBI identity theft affects around 10 million Americans every year, and that amounts to nearly $52billion stolen.  Most of that accumulates over the holidays, where shoppers are less willing to protect themselves, in favor of finding gifts quickly and easily.  So this holiday season, you should be taking more precautions, and keeping a watchful eye on all your purchases.

If you’re planning on doing some online gift shopping, before you hand over your credit card information, make sure you check every website’s security certificate.  Make sure that it satisfies your restrictions on how your information could be used, and how you want your info protected.  Never give any personal information to any website that you don’t absolutely trust.

Be careful when setting up a password with any online website.  Passwords can be easily hacked or stolen, so make sure that yours is fairly complicated, so that a thief won’t have an easy time trying to steal yours.  You want to use random number and letter combinations, of a fairly long length.  This way you can ensure your account and information is as safe as possible.

If you’re shopping at a crowded mall with your credit cards, there are also a few precautions you should take.  Make sure that nobody can see your credit card information when you hand your card over to a cashier.  Thieves are known to take pictures of your card with cell phones, so that they can use your credit card number for fraudulent purchases.

Also, instead of signing the back of your card, make sure that you write “Check ID”.  That way every time you use the card the clerk is required to check your photo identification before putting the purchase through.  This is better security, because a thief can’t steal your card, then use the card.  If your credit card is signed, most people will accept the card without identification.