Identity Theft Is Still a Viable Threat

Years ago, someone stole my identity. I had just gotten married, and suddenly my credit report was completely crazy, with new car purchases, new credit cards, you name it. Insult to injury was the fact that my thieves had unfortunate taste: they preferred shopping at K-Mart and bought used cars. Fortunately for me, the people who did it were eventually caught. The officer handling the case called me at work one day. When I answered my phone “Angela Mullen” he asked me in a low scary voice, “Are you sure?” That was creepy.

Identity theft is a problem that isn’t going away. In 2010 the U.S. Federal Trade Commission received 250,854 complaints about it – that’s nearly one-fifth of its total 1.34 million complaints in that year alone. While some progress has been made, there is still much that needs to be done, and everyone needs to be responsible for safeguarding their own information. How can you protect yourself? Look no further than your own online behavior.

Every day we log into several different sites for email, banking, shopping, social media, and so on. Almost every site we visit requires a login and password, and every time we check out of a shopping site, we are entering personal information thieves would love to get their hands on. Creating long, strong, encrypted passwords will go a long way to safeguard your accounts.

However, it’s next to impossible to remember all the passwords we have out there (I must have hundreds) and it takes a lot of time to create them, remember them, and find a way to keep them all straight. A better way: have a software program do it all for you. Chica Password Manager™ will help you create, encrypt, and store your passwords in a database with only one password to remember for all of your accounts and sites. It also safely saves your personal information, which you can use to quickly fill in forms online with one click. Try it free for 30 days.

It took many months to clear up the damage they did to my credit report. Don’t depend on others to protect you and your personal information, take steps to protect yourself. It’s a lot easier than cleaning up the mess after someone steals your identity.