Here’s a handy list of things you need to be doing to protect your identity, especially if you’re not currently subscribing to identity theft protection services.

1. Shred your documents – anything that you intend to throw away, like old tax returns, old bills, mail offers, pre-approved offers and anything that contains your social security number, name, address, phone numbers etc should be shredded and not thrown away. Throwing this type of documentation away whole is simply creating  an opportunity for identity thieves who willingly dig through trash to find information like this to commit fraud.
2. Watch out for Phishing Scams – whenever you get unsolicited emails asking you for information such as account verification for credit or bank accounts you own, you should immediately know that these are phishing scams. Often, these emails will end up in your junk mail folders, which you should delete regularly and never open. Usually the emails are constructed to sound urgent and it’s easy for someone who does not know any better to take the bite. Just delete them.
3. Set Fraud Alerts – If you suspect that you may have exposed your identity more than you should have, or if you think you’re at risk of identity theft for whatever reason, you can contact the credit bureaus and set fraud alerts on your credit files. This will require any merchants running credit checks on your file to take additional steps to verify your identity by contacting you directly. If you don’t use your credit a lot, you may want to consider putting a credit freeze on your credit files. This will prevent even you from opening new accounts, so make sure you won’t be needing your credit before you do this.
4. Protect your identity online – everything you do online can be traced back to you and the traffic that comes in and out of your computer can be easily sniffed and decoded, so protecting your home PC against this is necessary. It is recommended that you have both spyware protection and firewall software installed on your system to make protect you from intrusion. A firewall can help you become invisible and spyware protection will keep unwanted and dangerous code from penetrating your system.
5. Create complex passwords – this is something you should practice on everything you do online and in your PC. Always use comples passwords, this means you need to construct alphanumeric passwords that are only significant to you. If the interface you’re using allows special characters then use special characters as well. The more complex the password the harder it is to crack.
6. Clean out your wallet – many people have the bad habit of carrying their entire lives in their wallets, this is never an issue until they lose their wallets. This can easily become the worst day of your life, so start by taking your social security card out of your wallet and keeping it at home in a fire safe. Next, you should only carry a debit card and one credit card in your wallet, your drivers license and any membership cards as long as they don’t show too much information about you.
7. Get a P.O. Box address – if your mail box does not have a lock, you may want to consider getting a P.O. Box Address, this is easy pickings for identity thieves looking for any information they can use to cash in on your information.
8. Opt out of marketing lists and pre-approved offers – these can be dangerous, especially if you do not have a lock on your mail box. Credit bureaus and credit card companies give themselves the liberty of trading your information and this can potentially hurt you if the information ends up in the wrong hands. Follow the instructions on our identity theft prevention guide to opt out.
9. Check your credit report often – this is an important way to stay on top of your finances, but it is also a way to catch any inaccuracies and any fraud that may occur regarding your information. The ideal frequency should be quarterly, but a safer approach is to do it every other month to quickly spot fraud before it gets out of hand.
10. Be proactive and consistent – never let down your guard. When you hand somebody your credit card keep an eye on them and make sure it isn’t being skimmed. Cover the keypad with your other hand when you enter your pin number at the ATM or a store. Never volunteer information unnecessarily and always review your credit, bank and medical insurance statements to make sure everything is in order.