What is Identity Theft Protection?
Identity theft is when someone uses your personal information without your permission to access your accounts, steal money, commit fraud, or impersonate you for other reasons. Strangers are not always the ones committing identity theft. Sometimes a family member, close friend, or caregiver will steal your personal information and use it for their own benefit. The threat of identity theft is very real and prevalent right now. Therefore, you must protect yourself with identity monitoring.
IDStrong’s identity theft protection monitors your personal information and sends you alerts if we discover that it shows up online, which may indicate someone is misusing it. The best way to protect yourself is constant monitoring and alerts so you can take quick action to secure your sensitive information before someone uses it for fraud. It’s crucial to constantly keep a close eye on your social security number, bank account number, email, usernames, and passwords to keep identity thieves at bay. However, you can’t monitor the entire internet yourself looking for your exposed data. IDStrong’s identity monitoring does it for you. Identity theft protection combined with credit monitoring is some of the best protection you can put in place. Although there is no such thing as 100% protection against identity theft, identity theft protection goes a long way towards keeping your information safe and helping you avoid financial fraud. Additionally, we carry $1 million of identity theft insurance as part of our identity theft recovery plan to cover our customers.
Our service includes monitoring dark web forums and illegal marketplaces for your information, public records like court records (arrests, criminal records, bankruptcies, liens, and judgments, name and address changes, etc.), social media, and your credit reports. When we find your personal information is exposed as the result of a leak or breach, we will notify you.
How Does Identity Theft Happen?
ID theft happens in many ways. A large portion of data is stolen through data breaches. Sometimes hackers steal mail or trash to find your information. Cybercriminals use skimmers to steal credit cards and PINs, and malware is used to swipe debit and credit card data from websites and payment terminals. Often someone’s identity is stolen just by losing their wallet or purse. Scammers may call to request information pretending to be from government agencies, and sometimes they send phishing emails to trick users into handing over usernames and passwords or financial information. Thieves use dozens of methods to get your data, but you can protect yourself by signing up for IDStrong’s identity monitoring service.
How Can Identity Theft
Protection Help Me?
The best protection is preemptive monitoring, so you know about the threats before they happen. Our identity monitoring service alerts you when your information is exposed, often before any damage is done, so you can take steps to secure it. Our credit monitoring service alerts you when someone has added new accounts to your file, taken out loans, opened credit cards, or already committed some type of financial fraud. The two services combined give you the optimal protection you need to keep your identity safe.
Not only is it critical to monitor your financial data like bank accounts, credit cards, and tax returns, but you must also secure your personally identifiable information (PII) like your social security number (SSN), driver’s license number, passport number, and other IDs. In addition, you should also tightly secure your usernames and passwords. Once an identity thief has access to one of your accounts, they can more easily gain access to others and could even drain your bank accounts before you know it.
Some of the things a person can do
with your stolen identity are:
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Take out new loans
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Apply for credit cards
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Rent a house or apartment
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Get medical services under your plan
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Purchase vehicles
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Run up debt that goes on your credit file
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File for bankruptcy
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File fraudulent tax returns for the refunds
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Sign up for utilities (gas, electric, etc.)
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Ruin your credit score
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Give the police your information if they are arrested
How IDStrong Works
1. Monitor
We continuously monitor your personal and financial information, scouring the dark web for potential threats, active data breaches, and network element leaks.
2. Alert
If we locate your information somewhere in the dark recesses of the Internet, we will instantly notify you, alerting you to any information leaked, exposed, or breached.
3. Resolve
We won’t just alert you of the dangers; we’ll help you resolve them. Our identity protection experts are available 24/7 to help you take the necessary actions to restore your identity and get back to normalcy.
Our Benefits
Identity Monitoring
Our business is monitoring billions of records on the dark web. If we find anything about your information, we alert you to the risks and offer recovery strategies.
Credit Monitoring
One of the essential elements of your identity is that we monitor your credit profile for suspicious inquiries, new loans, or credit-related changes. That means no surprises when it’s time to put a down payment on your dream home or car.
Privacy Monitoring
Personal information is the lifeblood of data brokers. They collect and sell it on a massive scale, and when your data is harvested online and neatly parceled into their systems, we allow you to remove it with a click.
Up to $1 million Identity Theft Insurance *
If you are a victim of ID theft, we’ve got you covered. We will cover up to $1 million for theft recovery expenses. If the worst happens, that gives you peace of mind and a financial safety net.
Lost Wallet Assistance
We’ve got you covered, even if your wallet is lost or stolen. We’ll provide quick, reliable help navigating the world of data defense and structure the best recovery options for your situation. Our experts walk you through the process step-by-step.
Identity Restoration
If you experience identity theft, our expert fraud resolution team will deliver personalized support; we’ll investigate the situation, recover what we can, and restore your identity to its rightful status.
* The Identity Theft Insurance is underwritten and administered by American Bankers Insurance Company of Florida, an Assurant company.
Please refer to the actual policies for terms, conditions, and exclusions of coverage. Coverage may not be available in all jurisdictions. Review the Summary of Benefits.
Frequently Asked Questions
About Identity Theft
How Does an Identity Thief Get My Information?
Identity thieves may obtain your information from data breaches, the dark web, stealing your mail or trash, through malware, infected websites or social media ads, social engineering tactics, phishing emails, scam calls, and other methods. That is why our identity theft protection service with dark web monitoring is one of the best forms of protection for you. It reaches places you can’t go yourself.
How to Prevent Identity Theft
Although there is no 100% guarantee against identity theft, identity monitoring combined with credit monitoring will give you peace of mind that you are doing all you can to protect yourself. The service keeps an eye out for all your personal information and alerts you when it is stolen, breached, exposed, or leaked online so you can take quick action. If we find new accounts in your credit file, you will get a notification and can check them out and take action to fix any problems. Other tips to protect your identity include:
- Shred all sensitive documents before throwing them in the trash.
- Keep your social security card in a locked box at home; never carry it in your wallet.
- Be careful about putting mail with personal information on it, in your mailbox.
- Never give out personal details over the phone to a stranger.
- Get an annual free copy of your credit report (annualcreditreport.com).
- Review your bank and credit card statements regularly, looking for fraudulent activity.
- Always use long, strong passwords on all your accounts.
- Use good antivirus software on all your devices.
- Use a VPN whenever accessing public Wi-Fi and when accessing your financial accounts from work or home.
- Sign up for identity theft protection service.
How Can I Tell if I am a Victim of Identity Theft?
Some signs that you may be the victim of identity theft include:
- Unexplained charges on your credit card or bank withdrawals.
- Unfamiliar new accounts on your credit report.
- Suspicious activity with any of your online accounts.
- A criminal record that does not belong to you.
- You stop receiving bills or other mail.
- You start getting credit cards in the mail that you did not request.
- You are denied a loan or credit.
- You get a change of address card from the post office, but you didn’t initiate it.
- You receive collection calls for unpaid debts from lenders you don’t know.
- Your insurance statement shows medical charges for services you did not receive.
How to Report Identity Theft
You can report the fraud to the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) and the local police. The U.S. government has a specific site with resources to help (identitytheft.gov). You may also have to contact vendors to cancel accounts, re-issue credit cards, change your passwords, and the three major credit bureaus (Equifax, TransUnion, Experian) for help cleaning up your credit file. You can also have the credit bureaus put a fraud alert on your account. Consider a credit freeze so no one can take out new accounts in your name.
