Protecting Your Credit Card Personal Information

We all know that criminals are out there, waiting to steal our credit card information. These very criminals want credit card information so they can run up the charges then leave you holding the bags - with nothing to show for it. Even though some are local, most credit card criminals are in far away lands. Worse than that, they like to hide or go by other names so its virtually impossible to track them down.

The most common way for criminals to get credit card information is through phishing, which involves a fake email that appears to be sent from your credit card company. Normally, this fake email states that there was an error with your account, or that it was accessed by unauthorized personnel and needs your attention.

Spotting fake emails isnt hard to do - as long as you know what to look for. The most obvious hint for most, is the fact that they dont even have a credit card from the company that has sent the email. For others, the link is what gives the fake email away. Anytime you get an email from a credit card that you believe to be fake, you should always hover your mouse over the link, then right click the link with the mouse and select view source. If the link is indeed fake, the website address that comes up will be something other than that of a credit card company.

The criminals dont want you to look at the source for their website, as they simply want you to click on the link before you look at anything else. Once you have clicked on the link, youll arrive at a website that is usually an exact copy of a credit card website. Fake sites normally include everything that the actual site does, including the logos and banners. Even for the most amateur of credit card criminals, web pages like this are very easy to create.

Those of you who have fell victim to this scam, probably realized what you have done little too late. Once you have entered in your credit card information, you have done exactly what the criminals wanted and put yourself in violation of credit card fraud and identity theft. Once the criminal has your social security number and credit card information, he is more than likely to use that information to go on a shopping spree - stealing your money and running up your account.

If you receive an email such as this, you should always delete it. Even if you just click on the fake website to investigate, you may do more harm than good. Even though you may not enter any information at all, your computer may get infected with viruses or spyware simply because you clicked on the link. To avoid this altogether, you should never click on a link that you believe to be a fake credit card company website.

If you do your part and protect your credit card information, you wont have anything at all to worry about. Your personal information is very important, as you never want it to fall in the wrong hands. As long as you protect it, you wont have anything to worry about. There are always criminals out there, which is why you should always be on guard. Criminals want your personal information and your credit card numbers - its up to you to ensure that they dont get it. A criminal will do anything to get what they want, which is why protecting yourself is so very important these days.
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Why You Must Shred Credit Card Applications?

It is common for people to have one or two credit cards. They are convenient to use and can help establish good credit if the cardholder is responsible with their debt amounts and monthly payments. Because credit cards have become so ubiquitous in our world, many of us forget that they need to be protected just as avidly as cash. If your credit card offer has a high credit limit, then you might even want to protect more avidly than cash… unless you routinely carry $10,000 with you.

Identity theft is a big issue these days. You hear a lot about how you should protect yourself. You should shred, rather than just throw away, any documents that have your account numbers on them. This includes bank statements, receipts, loan statements, and credit card offer statements that you want to discard. This is the first form of protection that you should be taking. Often, identity theft begins when someone pulls important numbers out of your trash. You should even shred all of those credit card applications that you get in the mail. Your trash says a lot more about you than you might think. Let’s say that in your trash you have a credit card application that you didn’t want, a doctor’s bill from last month, and a note that you mother wrote you. These are three things that you normally wouldn’t connect to each other. While they don’t have anything to do with each other, the information in these documents could be enough for a savvy thief to steal your identity.

Consider the possibility that the thief already knows your name and address. It’s printed on everything. And even if somehow neither your name nor address is printed on something you throw away, he pulled the credit card application (you can found many applications for MasterCard customers) and other documents out of the trash right in front of your house. Now, also consider that the bill from doctor might use your social security number so that the office will know exactly who the bill is going to and from whom the payment is coming.

What’s your name, your address, and your social security number? These are three questions that are commonly asked by credit card processing companies when they are taking your application over the phone.But could the note from your mother possibly have something in it that would help a thief steal your identity? Credit card companies, in an attempt to offer some protection to current and potential customers, will often ask callers a personal question so that the caller’s identity can be verified.

These questions could be something as simple as “What city were you born in?” or “What’s you father’s middle name?” Stealing someone’s identity sometimes requires the thief to be good at solving puzzles. And a lot of them are. If your mother has signed the note with her first name, then the thief probably has her first and last name. There might be ten people in your city who have your name, but how many also have a mother with the same name as you. By consulting a phone book the thief can then learn your mother’s address. See how the holes start to fill in?

Protecting your identity is necessary, so you should always be certain to shred credit card applications. Throwing them away isn’t good enough. Unfortunately for you, a lot of crooks are very smart.

By: Michael Russell

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