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When Identity Theft Strikes You
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| Jennifer Steck |
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10/14/2008 - Identity theft is a crime that could be affecting you right now was the message given to those who attended "When Identity Theft Strikes You" seminar.
Office of Investigative Services for the State Highway Patrol, Timothy Root spoke at North Terrace Church of Christ Monday evening to inform the public on how they can help prevent themselves from becoming a victim of identity theft. "We recommend certain things like going to the Post Office, dropping mail off in the blue mail boxes, most of the blue mail boxes are on your way to work and things like that. A few other things are just being aware of the folks that are around you, people may be on the cell phone while you have your information out while you are in a check out line and they might be able to take a quick picture using a camera phone or they may be able to read back your info to someone on the other line. So things like that."
The start of the holiday season is a popular time for identity theft and Trooper Root says that if you were to be victimized there are a few steps you need to take. "First thing they can do is contact the facility where it happened at, if it happened at a store, contact that store the transaction happened and it was fraudulent. Next thing you want to do is contact your local law enforcement let them know what is going on and contact the 3 major credit reporting agencies- Experian, Equifax and Trans-Union and let them know as well so they can put a fraud alert on your account so they can prevent it from spreading any further. "
Root also says there are many organizations and websites you can go to to get further information on the topic of identity theft including the Highway Patrol, Department of Defense and the FBI. |
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