When Identity Theft Protection Goes Wrong
What You Need to Know about Identity Theft Protection
Many of us know that credit monitoring services are an excellent form of identity theft protection. While they may not actually prevent identity theft from occurring, these credit monitoring services can alert you as soon as the identity theft happens. But what happens when a company offering credit monitoring services for identity theft protection isn’t everything it appears to be?
A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
Okay, so you’re serious about identity theft protection and you want to sign up for credit monitoring services. You go online, perform a quick search and find yourself at a website that offers the service. You fill out a form with information such as your social security number, driver’s license number, birth date, address and other important information.
Now what happens if the website you gave this information to isn’t a credit monitoring service, but is actually owned by a ring of identity theft criminals? Think it can’t happen? It can, and it has.
I can’t stress this strongly enough – when you sign up for credit monitoring services for identity theft protection, make sure it’s with a company that you know is a reputable operation.