Are you an identity theft victim ? Then you need to read this!

The biggest reason for the explosion of id theft is because so few, even in this day and age, bother to check their credit report and then by the time they find out their identity has been stolen, it is too late. The damage has been done and you get to clean up the mess.

If you even suspect that you are the victim of Identity theft, Do NOT wait! Call the police and file a police report after you pull a copy of your credit report! You can get one for free. ...... This link will take you to free-credit-report-dot-com. It would be good to pull your credit report if you haven't done so in awhile.

Call the numbers for the 3 credit bureaus and place an initial fraud alert on your credit reports. You don't need a police report to do this! These numbers are:

Experian-1-888-397-3742/ you can use the automated system to place an initial fraud alert by following the prompts.

TransUnion-1-800-916-8800/ same as above

Equifax-1-888-766-0008/ same as above, but menu has changed for those who used this service before! In my opinion, I found that Equifax was the fastest to send you initial fraud alert to the other credit bureaus. If you can't get through to all of them, once you file an alert with one, it is sent to the other automatically!There have even been reports of identity theft being so problematic because of our porous borders. Some say that our southern border is an open invitation to identity theft because Mexico has little resources for detering criminals.

It is said that Arizona and California have the largest cases of id theft anywhere in the Nation! What this means for you is that you are going to have to watch out for yourself! I can only tell you that what I mentioned above has been reported in local periodicals I found online. However, Texas is not far behind and has a large problem here too.

No area can be considered safe from id theft because of our modern computer and information age.

There is a company called Lifelock that claims a 1 million dollar insurance policy to any account holder who has their identity stolen if you are a client of theirs! This company constantly monitors your credit and credit history for you and I've been told that families who have 2 adults working full time find it a lifeline. This banner advertisement is a link that will take you directly to lifelock! This company has very reasonable plans to protect you and it is worth looking into. Is $10.00 a month a wise investment to protect you and your family from id theft? I would think so! Your identity is covered by their MILLION dollar insurance policy! It's worth checking out!

The internet has been a great tool, but it has also been a great tool for those with criminal activities! Most cases of id theft do not occur on the internet however and you need to be aware of this. ID thieves will go through your trash to find any kind of evidence of your credit history and receipts for items purchased with a credit card are the most vulnerable! Any kind of information you throw away containing any kind of bank account information, credit card information or social security number should be sent into a paper shredder!

Get a paper shredder that does not just turn your paper trail into strips, but also cuts diagonally turning your paper trail into chips. A confetti shredder is the best you can get!

Monitor your childrens credit report too. Children are the biggest victims of id theft because no one asssumes that children will have a credit rating because of their ages. You don't want to be one of those who finds out that this line of thought is wrong!

Let's go on to the next page of identity theft by clicking here.