When someone breaks into your home they usually steal your TV, your stereo, and your appliances, right? They want the Rolex and the big screen, the other car in the garage and the jewelry. While it is true that most break ins are done for the purpose of finding basic valuables in the house and then selling them on the street, many people don’t know that your identity can be stolen as well. That’s right, you can have your identity stolen when someone breaks into your home. Do you have important personal documents sitting around your house? Most of us have a home office full of credit card bills, social security cards, and other important personal information. If someone were to steal this kind of information could your identity then be used to purchase things?
When your home is broken into you will probably respond with terrible panic. You will look for the valuables of the home first off and you might not even notice that someone has taken your papers. With so many personal papers circulating around your office or home will you notice that a couple of them are gone? Once an identity theft has been perpetrated it can be very difficult to try to figure out who has done it and to recover your money. Some credit card companies are understanding but many are not and you should not count on yours to protect you. So how can you protect yourself against this type of identity theft? If they actually break into your home to take your information what can you do to prevent identity theft? Is there no hope?
The easiest way to deal with this problem is to make sure that your personal information is in a safe or other secure location in your home. If someone breaks into your home they will probably try to get in and out quickly. If they perceive that getting your personal information will be difficult they probably won’t take the time to do it. If you secure your safe to the floor you can rest assured that they will not take your personal papers. However, this will only work if you are diligent about keeping your personal papers kept in a safe location. Even one or two papers left out on a table could be taken and used to steal your identity.
If you can be diligent about putting your personal papers in a secure place every time you leave your home you will prevent this type of identity theft from occurring. With so much emphasis on Internet identity theft, many of us have forgotten that there are other ways to steal someone’s identity. We have worked so hard to try to prevent people from getting our credit card information electronically that we become lazy about someone simply stealing our credit card. Don’t become lazy about some of the basic forms of identity theft that occur everyday throughout this country.
With a few basic precautions you will avoid a very serious form of identity theft and will help to spoil the work of criminals. While you might not be able to control a break in you can make sure that criminals don’t get your personal papers. They can steal your television, your stereo, and your jewelry, but they can’t take your identity and use it against you for years. Put your papers in a hidden location or in a safe, and you will have helped to fight the war on crime. Don’t give someone the satisfaction of taking what matters to you most.
