Beware of These Three Identity Theft Predictors
Stealing your identity is a nervous and stressful experience . According to a recent study by Consumer Site ID Analytics, there are several factors that make you more likely to be a victim of a scam.
In their online privacy Vs. In a security study, the company analyzed 100,000 records of people who had never experienced identity theft, and those who did. They looked at their online presence and found that overall, the people who talked about themselves the most were four times more likely to be scammed than those who talked the least. They found that three factors are predictors of fraud:
- Number of social sites the person used
- The number of websites on which their personal information was publicly available.
- The number of past addresses found for this person
As Credit.com points out, the old correlation versus causation argument can be applied here, but the results are also not particularly surprising. They write:
It’s not clear why having multiple addresses linked to your identity could make you a more likely victim of scams, although it’s easy to assume. The more old addresses, the easier it is for a criminal to use one unnoticed, for example … However, you can limit the number of social networks and sites on which you publish information about yourself. “The consumer message is: Pay close attention to what you publish,” Coggeshall said.
It also just helps to simply be aware of the potential risks of spreading too much information. In addition to protecting this personal information, you also want to check your credit report at least once a year to make sure there is no unauthorized activity and you need to know what to do in case this happens . Credit.com offers some more tips at the link below.
High Online Consumers Are Four Times More At Risk of Identity Theft, New ID Analytics Study | via Credit.com