Preventing Identity Theft

ID fraud is one of the fastest growing problem in America today. Every 4 seconds someone’s identity is stolen.There are now several credit fraud prevention services on the market to address this problem. ID thieves will retrieve 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 mail. Acquire personal information you share on unprotected websites. Purchase your personal information from an inside source such as a store employee who acquires 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 use your personal information and how difficult it is to stop it, many individuals are turning to identity theft protection services to receive better pro-active protection from Identity theft, keeping yourself safe from identity thieves. These services will monitor and alert you of any fraudulent activity.

The question now becomes which identity theft prevention 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 specialize in identity theft protection, you might also want to consider a credit monitoring service to provide you another layer of protection that many identity theft prevention services don’t always provide. Many of these credit monitoring services offer a free trial where you’re able to obtain your credit report for free .

There’s credit fileservices where you can see your information from one credit bureau. Other services let’s you to see your credit score from all three credit bureaus. TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian. This is crucial because the information contained in one credit bureau file may not match with what’s on the others. Also, many creditors may choose to view one or more of your free online credit reports. And most offers do not provide a free FICO score for free. You only get to see what’s on your regular credit reports. But a FICO score is not the same as your regular credit report or score. It uses different set of rules for producing your FICO score. Many lenders utilize the FICO report to determine your creditworthiness. Therefore it may be prudentto obtain your FICO report before applying for a auto loan. Another feature that these offers provide is identity theft monitoring. With some services you only get the bare minimum while others provide total identity theft monitoring prevention. These are some of the reasons why it makes sense to make comparisons between the features of these free credit reports online offers.