Preventing Credit Fraud

ID fraud is one of the biggest crime in America today. Every four seconds someone’s identity is stolen.There are now several id fraud prevention services on the market to address this problem. Identity thieves will go through your mail or trash, looking for bank and credit card statements, pre-approved credit offers, and tax information. ID thieves may steal personal information from your wallet or purse such as identification cards, credit cards, or bank cards. Fill out change-of-address forms to redirect your address. Acquire personal information you share on unprotected websites. Buy your personal information from an inside source such as a store employee who obtains your personal information from a credit application or by skimming your credit card information when you make a purchase. Someone at your place of employment may sell your personnel records. Considering how identity thieves steal and commit fraud and how difficult it is to stop it, many organizations are turning to identity theft protection services to obtain better pro-active protection from ID theft, keeping your identities safe from identity thieves. These services will monitor and alert you of any unusual activity.

The question now becomes which identity theft protection service provider is right for you. How do you easily compare the features of each one? That’s where a site with a comparison chart becomes handy. In addition to services that are dedicated to credit fraud protection, you might also want to consider a credit monitoring service to provide you another layer of protection that many id theft prevention services don’t always provide. Many of these credit monitoring services offer a free trial where you’re able to obtain your free credit scores .

There’s credit fileservices where you can see your information from one credit bureau. Other services allow you to view your credit score from all 3 credit bureaus. Trans Union, Equifax, and Experian. This is crucial because the data contained in one credit bureau report may not match with what’s on the others. Also, various creditors may choose to view one or more of your free credit reports online. And most offers do not provide a free FICO report for free. You only get to view what’s on your normal credit reports. But a FICO score is not the same as your normal credit report or score. It uses different set of rules for producing your FICO report. Most lenders utilize the FICO score to determine your creditworthiness. Therefore it may be prudentto view your FICO report before asking for a personal loan. Another feature that these services provide is identity theft monitoring. With some offers you only get the bare essentials while others provide total identity theft monitoring prevention. These are some of the reasons why it makes sense to compare the features of these free credit score online offers.

Tagged as: credit fraud, credit theft, id theft, identity fraud, identity theft