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The Impact of Identity Theft
So, you can see that once an identity thief has your identity, he or she can do just about anything, from ruining your credit to getting you arrested. Don't think you are immune. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, recent data breaches could potentially expose 53 million individuals to identity theft. This number is steadily increasing. Further, according to the FTC, over 27,000 people per day have their identities stolen in America. It has been predicted that in the next couple of years, 1 in 4 will be a victim of identity theft. Of course no one really knows the number, because many people don’t find out they are a victim of Identity Theft for a year or two.
Clearly, this can impact your ability to buy a home or a car, it can impact your ability to obtain employment, can cause you to pay more in interest and even higher insurance rates. The experts say that when an identity theft occurs it can take an average of 600 hours to restore your identity.
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Credit Monitoring
When it comes to protecting your identity, being proactive is the only practical way to go to avoid the frustration, time, and the expense of restoring your identity and name. However, there truly isn’t much you can do to prevent identity theft. Children and infants have had their identities stolen, and they don’t have a credit history. All they have is a Social Security Number.
So what are the solutions to protect yourself? Right now we see a lot of credit monitoring services being advertised. Credit monitoring is an easy and often inexpensive way of keeping an eye on your credit, but you are on your own to try to fix an identity theft.. but what happens when they notify you that your financial/credit has been stolen, then what? You have to do the work, 600 hours is the average. That’s fifteen full-time work weeks. Who has that kind of time?
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Resolution or True Restoration?
Resolution services tell you they will help you fix the problem. In reality, all they do is give you information and access to an 800 number where you can ask questions and get help from a “credit expert”. These are usually little more than low paid customer service reps who read from the manual put out by the FTC.
True restoration comes when you have the resources of the number one risk management investigation company at your disposal, and you can turn everything over to them and instead of you spending the 600+ hours putting your identity back to where it was before the theft, they have experts who will do it for you. You will likely need the services of an attorney, also, to help out with the legal aspect of restoration. It is out there, and can restore any type of the 5 Identity Thefts described above.
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What should you do?
You definitely should be as careful as possible with the information you control. Shredding is important, but don't let trying to be proactive fool you into thinking it cannot happen to you. It can happen, and in ways you may not have thought about before.
So shred private information, and look for a company that provides true restoration services and access to attorneys so that you don't have to spend your valuable time fixing what the identity theft stole from you. Check out the company, make sure it's solid and reliable and has withstood the test of time.
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