As you’re starting off the new year, you might be thinking of resolutions you can make to keep yourself and your family safe and healthy in 2018. Aside from following some simple tips to keep your identity safe, there are three overarching steps — which we’ve dubbed the 3 ‘M’s — that you should practice all year long that can help you stay safe. In this blog post, I will identify those 3 ‘M’s and how they can help you safeguard your identity.
- Monitor Your Accounts: You should check your credit report regularly so you know when something changes. Here are three places to score monitoring for free. Also, set up calendar reminders to get free copies of your credit report every four months so you’re looking at it throughout the year. Monitor your financial accounts (including bank, credit card and retirement) as well as your medical insurance Explanations of Benefits sent to you following doctor visits and procedures. Make sure you received everything for which your insurance company was billed.
- Minimize Your Exposure: Don’t share a bunch of personal info on Facebook (such as when you’re away on vacation or personal details that could answer security questions). Unless you initiated contact, don’t authenticate your identity to anyone via phone or email. Create strong passwords and keep them safe. Be sure and shred documents that contain personal info and safeguard other docs and identification that an identity thief could use to steal your identity. Finally, freeze your credit (we explain how to do it here). Just be sure and remember that while credit monitoring and credit freezes might be a common line of defense, there are serious limitations. While it does help prevent some new accounts requiring a credit check from being opened (not all new accounts require a credit check), it doesn’t safeguard the accounts you already have open. Plus, it won’t prevent all types of identity theft. There are many serious forms of identity theft that won’t show up on your credit report at all, including criminal identity theft, Social Security identity theft, employment identity theft, tax identity theft, and medical identity theft.
- Manage The Damage: Identity theft happens all the time, but what will you do when it happens to you? You can’t sign up for automobile insurance after you have a car accident, and likewise, you can’t get covered for identity theft after your identity has been stolen. Enroll in an identity theft restoration program now so that a certified restoration specialist can fix the damage and restore your identity when it’s compromised. LibertyID is an identity theft restoration company and there’s no limit to the time or money we will spend restoring your identity to pre-event status. The average identity theft victim spends 200+ hours trying to repair the damage. If you have LibertyID, that time is significantly reduced because experts perform the work for you. If you’re a LibertyID member and your identity is stolen, we will fix it. Simply call us if you suspect your identity has been stolen. We will open a case and from then on, a certified restoration specialist will take the necessary steps to restore your identity. That same point of contact will handle all of the legwork — things like submitting disputes to lending institutions, utility companies, cell phone carriers, etc. and researching and documenting erroneous info on your credit file and having it removed. We will keep you informed with regular status updates.
Just remember — you have to get covered before there’s an incident.
Photo Credit: magnifying glass, Connie Posites, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0