No time is a good one to get hit by an identity thief, but the current recession can make a bad situation even worse. A recent Nationwide Insurance poll found that most Americans, at this point in time, don’t have the funds set aside to be able to recover from identity theft.

The good news, if there can be any good news about identity theft, is that it’s usually pretty easy to get your money back if a thief steals your credit card. However, things start to get hairy if a debit card, insurance account or loan is involved or even when a new credit card is issued in your name to the thief. In fact, Nationwide found that in these more complicated cases it was not uncommon for them to still be unresolved after an entire year has passed. It also cited that the victims surveyed spent on average around 81 hours on their cases. This amounts to more than two weeks of work time.

Who has time for all that, or money to spare trying to prove they are really who they say they are? No one ever really did, and they especially don’t when the stock market resembles a ping pong ball with all of the erratic bouncing up and down. Identity theft is unique to all other crimes in that the victim is found guilty till proven innocent. Sadly, the thieves are also impacted by the economy, only making them want to steal more, either to buy things for themselves or to sell the information and make a quick buck.

Speaking of a buck, why not put a few aside each month to pay for an identity theft protection service? It’s certainly cheaper than all the legal fees, paperwork, fines and interest charges you may have to pay if a thief crosses your path. Plus, it’s something you can do before you’re victimized to prevent it from happening in the first place.

With this recession which seems to have no end in sight, depending on who you talk to, you have enough to worry about without having to guard your personal information day and night, online and off. Just do as much as you can, and you can let the identity protection plan do the rest. You can even take advantage of the insurance policies some offer for a further guarantee you’ll be spared the expense and hassle associated with identity theft. Well worth it for the peace of mind alone.

Here’s one more statistic that may get you thinking identity protection is not such a bad idea. Identity theft is by far the most common crime reported to the Federal Trade Commission. There are not merely hundreds of cases a year in the United States. There are millions; yes, millions. To be exact, that number was over nine million in 2008 alone. In fact, identity theft is the fastest growing crime in the United States.

You probably have enough problems trying to keep your 401k from dipping into negative numbers and figuring out what the name of your bank is from month to month. Make identity theft someone else’s problem. Put a protection plan in charge. Don’t become a statistic for next year’s Nationwide survey or one of the skyrocketing number of victims. If you think nine million is way too many, keep yourself, and your family, from adding one more to that list. Protect yourself today!

There’s another aspect of the mortgage crisis that few people talk about and that's identity theft. While there is a definite rise in foreclosures as of late, there is also a rise in mortgage fraud via identity theft. Two ways that this can occur are through unscrupulous people who pose as lenders or buyers using information that isn’t theirs and through thieves who steal other people’s personal information to perpetrate elaborate mortgage scams. These thieves sometimes steal people’s homes right out from under them.

It’s bad enough to have an identity thief make a few charges on your credit card. Can you imagine if that thief bought an entire home in your name without your knowledge? It’s not that common, but it does happen. A woman bought a $419,000 townhouse in Fairfax County, VA in 2007 and was successful in obtaining not one, but two mortgages in someone else’s name. In another recent case, a real estate business owner took over more than 100 people’s mortgage loans to “help them make the payments.” Instead, she ended up selling the homes to fake buyers and not making any payments, jut collecting the people’s money.

Another scam is called “house stealing.” It happens when a thief transfers a deed for someone else’s home to his or her name or that of an associate. Some homeowners; well, now ex-homeowners, still live in the homes in question and pay on the mortgage, having no idea that their homes no longer officially belong to them. Thieves also target second or vacation homes since this can help them keep up their scams for longer.

If you’re a homeowner, you may be wondering what the point of learning about these scams is if there’s nothing you can do about it. Luckily, there is something. It’s called an identity theft protection plan. Constant monitoring of your credit reports can help you to determine is someone has taken over your mortgage and has quit making the payments. A public records search, which many plans include in their basic service, can let you know if your deed has been transferred to another party without your knowledge.

What else can you do? One big thing is keep your personal information off the Web. Don’t include your first and last name and address when trying to rent out your vacation home. Instead, simply provide a phone number or email contact. To be even safer, compose a simple online form so you get interested parties’ information without having to shell out yours. Once you have a confirmed renter, you can give out your details at that point.

It’s a sad day when you can only be pretty sure that the home you’re paying on actually belongs to you. Though, since it’s a reality, it has to be dealt with. Be proactive instead of reactive and you should be okay. Ask your lenders to contact you immediately if they notice anything strange with your bills. According to federal law they should do that anyway, but, if you haven’t noticed in the news of late, sometimes large corporations need a little prodding to do the right thing.

You may also want to look at an identity theft protection service such as IDWatchdog, Identity Guard or TrustedID as they include public record searches as part of their service.

There’s another way thieves can get your personal information, besides hacking into computer networks or digging through your mailbox. They can find it when you post it, voluntarily, on the Web. Now you may be thinking there’s no way anyone would plaster their account information in a public forum. But you could basically be doing that just by posting on social networking sites or message boards. How? By telling online friends specific details about your life.

It’s a fact that many if not most individuals use passwords that relate to their daily lives since they’re easier to remember and your online profile could have scads of this information, such as where you live, your name and the names of family members, your birth date, your occupation and even the type of pets you own. Once he or she gets access to your posts, all a potential identity thief has to do is some basic trial and error to come up with passwords you might use. You may remember that this is how a hacker got into Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin’s email account before the 2008 election – simply by guessing her password. More sophisticated thieves run software that check against virtually every word in the english dictionary. This is why it is important to have identity theft protection.

So how does figuring out a password translate into identity theft? Easy. Once a thief has access to one of your accounts, even if it’s just your Yahoo email account, he or she is well on the way to being able to become you for all financial intents and purposes. All the thief has to do is wait for an online banking statement to roll in or an order confirmation that has your credit card number and expiration date on it. If neither one of these incidents occur, he or she can just use the forgot password function for any site where you’re a member to get more usernames and passwords sent to that email address, since in most cases the security questions also involve personal details, such as your mother’s maiden name.

This is why there is a huge push for people to use complex passwords on even the most mundane of accounts. For example, instead of using the name of the street you live on, think of something you love about that street. Perhaps you love that the neighbors are so friendly. Use this for your password by making it "tnasf", the first letter from each word of - the neighbors are so friendly. Then stick a couple numbers or special characters on the end to stump a thief even further. Remember, it is never a good idea to use a word found in the dictionary. Also, never use the same password for all of your accounts. If a thief is able to guess one of them, you don’t want him or her to be able to go whole hog, so to speak.

If you have trouble remembering all of these passwords, you can save them in a secure area on your computer. Then you only need to remember one password: the one you need to access that file. Also, some identity theft protection services such as identity guard offer you the option to let them save your passwords for you. You can access them easily either online or through your cell phone by entering a secret personal identification number. Again, you’ll still have to remember one on your own, but it’s certainly easier than recalling dozens. You may also want to look at other software programs that can manage your passwords securely for you.

To learn more about how you can protect identity take a look at our identity theft tips page or simply browse through our site, no password required.

If you haven’t been living in a hole in the ground, you must know that the American economy is going through some very troublesome times. With all of the layoffs, foreclosures and other unfortunate goings on, identity theft may be becoming more appealing to those who never would have even thought of committing the crime before. This is not to say that you should stop letting your neighbors stop by for a visit, or become unfriendly to strangers but it definitely isn’t the time to let down your guard.

So how can you keep yourself protected from identity theft without giving the evil eye to every stranger and acquaintance you see? Simple. Get an identity theft protection plan. Although these identity protection plans are not created equal, many have similar features; among them:

Credit monitoring: Instead of constantly having to check for fraud, most Americans are happy to review them once a year and then leave it at that and hope everything goes well. Identity protection plans do not have that blasé attitude. They check your credit weekly or even daily to let you know of changes to your file right away.

Fraud Alerts: Placed with all three credit bureaus and renewed every 90 days these fraud alerts prevent fraudulent credit (as small as a department store credit card or as large as a mortgage) from being opened in your name by requiring creditors to verify your identity (routinely done by calling you) before approving the creditor loan.

Database scanning: Some services are even more proactive, working to catch the thieves while they still have your information in hand but have yet to use it. For example, ID Watchdog looks for credit card and loan applications that have your name on them so you can put the kibbutz on them before the accounts are even opened. LifeLock’s eRecon service checks the databases where identity thieves buy and sell information to see if any of your personal details are up on the bidding block.

Identity Theft Insurance: One of the best things that some services offer is their guarantee, insurance or warranty plans. This can help consumers immensely if they are victims of identity theft while in the care of a protection plan by assisting them with thousands of dollars of expenses.

Peace of mind: This is probably more valuable than all of the other features put together. When you put yourself and your family under the watchful eye of an identity theft protection service, you have less to worry about when submitting personal information online or through the mail and even as you go about your day, making purchases in stores are getting money out of the ATM.

At a tough time such as this one, it’s important for Americans to stand together, but that doesn’t mean that the person standing next to you should snatch your credit card. As the 9.8 million victims in 2008 can tell you, it’s a sad fact that you just can’t trust everyone to do the right thing. That being said, you can do the right thing for yourself and your family. Start doing some research into getting everyone protected. If you’re not ready to do that just yet, at least start shredding those old credit card statements and order your free credit report.

You may think that some things are still sacred even to identity thieves: not stealing from children or religious institutions, for example. However, it may ultimately help you to know just how low these people will stoop for their own financial gain or protection. It may just be the wake up call you need to start protecting your identity today.

One recent example highlights this. Terrie Maudlin, a convicted identity thief out of Denver Colorado was convicted of producing false documents stating she had ovarian cancer to put off her trial and sentencing. Luckily, for her trouble, she ended up receiving two 12-year sentences: one for her original identity theft crime and one for attempting to deceive the court. However, she obviously was not worried about karma or any other type of consequence. She was simply focused on achieving a means to an end. While Ms. Maudlin was eventually caught, there are hundreds of other identity thieves out there that are just like her or even worse. And yes, they will attack your child's credit and good name as well.

The important thing to note in this case is that identity thieves are not above anything when it comes to lying, cheating and stealing for their own gain. That makes it very important to protect yourself - both your identity and your finances - and not take anything for granted when it comes to you, and your families, security. These thieves are not above taking any and all of your personal information and selling it to the highest bidder, cleaning out your entire bank account and ruining your credit rating. Some could even cause you to lose your home, your job or your entire livelihood. They will feel no remorse for doing so. All you are is money in the bank.

To keep your money in the bank, in your own account and not the account of someone pretending to be you, consider signing up for an identity protection plan. Sure, you can keep yourself somewhat safe just by viewing your credit report once every three months and shredding your documents, but that may not be enough considering the type of people you are up against. Identity protection plans can monitor your credit on a much more constant basis and alert you if anyone is trying to obtain credit in your name. That way you will be on to the identity thieves as soon as possible, so you can alert the authorities and your creditors before any irreparable damage is done.

This kind of constant protection doesn’t have to be expensive either with Debix Identity Protection only costing $24 per year (cheaper for families) and the well known LifeLock costing $99 per year with the discount you can find on this site. Choosing the right plan depends on your wants and needs. You don’t have to go with the first plan you come across. Use our site to read reviews of identity theft protection companies you are interested in. You can then compare the plans and come to an educated decision about which identity theft service is right for you and your family.

Don’t be one of the millions of Americans (9.93 million Americans in 2008 to be exact) who don’t take this advice and end up paying the consequences, literally. Just like those shady identity thieves, you have to look out for yourself. The difference is that you will be doing so on the legal side of the spectrum. Protect yourself from identity theft today!

Those tax return documents that you’re advised to keep for three to seven years in case you get audited contain lots of information identity thieves would love to get their hands on: your date of birth, your place of employment and your Social Security number. You can’t shred them and get rid of them because the IRS may come a knockin’, and, unfortunately, you can’t prevent their existence by just not paying your taxes. Well you can, but it is really not a good idea.

If you have the documents in paper form, here are some tips to follow:
• Place them all in a manila folder and put them in a locked filing cabinet or stick them in a safe deposit box.
• Get rid of any extra copies of the forms using the shredder. Keeping extras only increases the chance that they will get lost or “disappear.”
• Make sure to secure the documents for other family members too. It’s best to put them all in the same place.

If you are one of those tech-savvy people or paper-savers that would rather save your tax forms on your computer, follow these tips instead:
• Don’t save them on a public computer. This doesn’t just mean one at the library. It also means your work machine or one that you share with roommates.
• Delete the files from the machine if you ever have to take it in for repairs.
• Erase the contents of your hard drive with professional software before selling it or destroy it.
• Call the files something besides “2009 taxes,” or anything similar, so that even if a thief gets a hold of your machine it won’t be obvious that he or she should look for this information.
• Password protect your machine, or at least your user profile, and keep your security software updated.
• Never save them using an online storage system, since these can be hacked fairly easily.
• Don’t send them to anyone through email, not even a person you’re filing jointly with. Thieves have a way of interception such information.

Not sure why secure storage is such a big issue? Try the fact that over than 313,000 identity theft complaints were filed in 2008 and that the FTC estimates 9.9 million victims in 2008. That number is expected to be even higher this year. Remember, the more information of yours that a thief has, the more damage he or she has the potential to do.

Thieves have bought cars, boats and even houses using other people’s personal information. They have also committed crimes, gotten medical treatment and planned terrorist acts. This is not something to simply shove under the rug and ignore. In fact, you may want to consider getting an identity theft protection plan.

Identity thieves are not people to be dealt with lightly. They certainly will not offer you, your family and lots of other people they don’t know from Adam the same courtesy. Okay, any courtesy at all. Protect your documents and you good name from these scoundrels.

Everyone knows that identity theft is caused by criminals who steal people’s personal information. Or is it? One blogger and identity theft expert, Robert Siciliano, says that it’s not the thieves, per se, who are the biggest part of the problem. Instead, it is the people who are not keeping their personal information secure.

For example, he brings up how one employee at a financial institution who doesn’t password protect his laptop and leaves it behind on the subway can in effect cause a security breach that releases all of the information on present account holders. He also blames people who don’t shred sensitive documents before they throw them away, especially those who work at financial institutions.

So what is the lesson to be learned here? Even if you do your best to secure your own personal information, it doesn’t mean someone else won’t release it all into the world for you. Now that doesn’t mean that you should just give up and announce your Social Security number on the side of a bus (like the CEO of LifeLock chooses to do). Instead, you need to continue what you’re doing as well as drive defensively, so to speak.

Driving defensively, when it pertains to identity theft, means to anticipate problems before they occur so that you can prevent them from happening. Keep the mindset that you will be targeted instead of thinking that identity theft won’t happen to you. This is not a pessimistic approach, but rather a realistic one, since the Federal Trade Commission reported that identity theft complaints rose 21.5 percent last year and resulted in 9.9 million victims of this crime.

For starters, check one of your credit reports every four months (rather then all them at once) and make sure you know them backwards and forwards so you can recognize right away if something doesn’t look right. Second, check your credit account statements each and every month, so you know how much your bills are supposed to be and can be sure there are no extra charges on them. (Note that this doesn’t just mean credit card bills, but rather all of your bills, even your utilities.) If you don’t get your bill on time, let the company know ASAP. There could be a chance a representative is sending it to the wrong address unbeknown to you.

If you have any concerns, any at all, ask the credit bureaus to put fraud alerts on your credit files. This will make it so creditors will be asked to contact you before opening new accounts. If you don’t want to go through this trouble, or you just want greater peace of mind, sign up with an identity theft protection service and let the company do it for you. There are many different options for an affordable price.

Another option is to use a database company such as ID Watchdog to monitor databases and verify that your information is correct. Incorrect information, though at times just a typo or minor error, is often a sign of identity theft. Though not as effective you can also look at credit monitoring services where the company contacts you if there are any changes to your credit report.

Since there are hundreds and hundreds of data breaches each year it sure is nice to have an identity protection service you can count since you can’t be sure your information isn’t being distributed due to a breach of common sense.

Ah, to be an identity thief, with so many different options available to you for pilfering people’s personal information. They’ve got the mail, the Internet, the landline telephone, and now even cell phone text messaging. That’s right. Over the past couple years, identity thieves have been exploring this new and popular frontier. In fact, so much so that a new term has been coined: “smishing.” Smishing is a merger of the ever-popular phishing scam with the use of SMS, or “short message service,” the industry term for text messaging. (It is sometimes written as SMiShing.)

Other than the format used, the crime is basically the same as the typical phishing scam. The identity thief contacts his or her image by sending a text message to his or her phone. IN the message, the thief says that one of the person’s accounts has been compromised or there is some other pretend complication with it. It then thoughtfully offers up a phone number for the person to call to get this mess all sorted out or offers up a Web address. Or, in the most malicious case, the thief will ask the person to register for a service or download a program directly to his or her phone. This site or program may have a virus or spyware attached to it that gives the thief access to all of the contents of the cell phone, including passwords and the address book.

A huge problem with this type of identity theft is that a large number of cell phone users are children and young teens. They may not be as savvy to the ways of identity thieves as those who have been familiar with this crime for several years. For this reason, it is paramount to teach kids to do the following if they get a message that they are not sure about: DELETE IT!

At this time, there is not much else you can do, since it is difficult to determine the source of these malicious text messages. There are some things that everyone can do to prevent getting more in the future:

1. Never put cell phone numbers up on any Web sites, especially message boards and social networking pages. Thieves have robots that troll the Web looking for them.
2. Only give out the number to people with a legitimate reason to have it.
3. Avoid sending text messages to register for products and services if at all possible.

Another thing that can help is registering for an identity theft protection plan. This is just as important for minors as it is for adults, since there are as many as 500,000 identity theft victims under the age of 18 each year. Luckily, it’s easy to protect everyone, since some plans like TrustedID and Debix offer their services for the whole family for one low price.

So, in conclusion, be wary of unsolicited messages on the Web, over the phone, on paper or through SMS. If you don’t know who a message is from, don’t assume you have to answer it or that it is legitimate.

By Scott Stevenson, CEO of Eliminate ID Theft

Lets face it: Filing taxes can be confusing, no matter how you look at it. The stimulus payments just add to the complexity of the task. People don’t know whether the stimulus checks they received in 2008 are taxed, and about 15 percent of those who already submitted their tax returns have made “recovery rebate credit” mistakes. To make matters worse, thieves and fraud artists are capitalizing on this chaos by scamming unsuspecting taxpayers into revealing their financial information and using it to steal their identity.

With the tax code and stimulus checks and the poor economy, we are entering uncharted territory as it relates to exposure to identity theft crimes. I can equip you with the valuable information you need to protect your identity and prevent what’s intended as a positive thing—the stimulus checks—from turning into a disaster. Below, are some tips for avoiding tax return/stimulus check scams.

Filing Taxes Online:
- Make sure both your work and home computers have updated firewall, anti-spyware and antivirus programs to protect them from hackers seeking your information.
- Choose a tax-filing service you’re familiar with, preferably one that’s listed as approved on www.irs.gov/efile. Also make sure the Web site is encrypted.
- Beware of phony e-mails that appear to be from the IRS. These are often phishing scams intended to gather personal and financial information. If you receive a message like this, do not open it. Immediately forward it to phishing@irs.gov. This message can contain viruses harmful to your computer, or simply be a phishing scam. Not only can the information be used to steal personal and financial information, but it could also provide a thief with all they need to intercept your economic stimulus check or even to steal your identity.
- Change your computer password often, especially this time of year.

Filing Taxes By Mail:
- If you hire someone to do your taxes for you, be sure to check their credentials and references to make sure they are reputable.
- Be aware that W-2s and all documents containing sensitive information should arrive by mail by March 2. If you haven’t received them by then, contact the IRS at 800.829.1040, as they may have been stolen.
- When you mail the completed forms in, wrap them in an extra sheet of paper to ensure they’re not visible through the envelope.
- Mail these forms directly from the post office; a raised mailbox flag alerts thieves to outgoing checks.

How can you tell if your information has been compromised?
Look for:
- More than one return was filed in your Social Security Number
- Your notice indicates that you received wages from an employer unknown to you

If you suspect Fraud:
- Respond only to the name, address, and number printed on the IRS notice.
- Notify the IRS Identity Protection Specialized Unit by calling 800-908-4490.
- Report the fraud by calling the FTC identity theft hotline at 877-438-4338.

For more information or to trust your safety to the experts, contact Eliminate ID Theft at www.eliminateidtheft.com.

Identity Theft Labs is pleased to announce the addition of ID Watchdog to our site. Given our commitment to you, the consumer, to review and compare the best identity theft protection services we felt that Id Watchdog's unique offer, industry leading database scanning and straightforward guarantee to restore your identity mandated their inclusion. Id Watchdog's offer is quite different from competitors like LifeLock or TrustedID and from the more traditional credit monitoring offers. So lets talk a little about their service and how it differs.

Id Watchdog does not place fraud alerts on your credit accounts or monitor them on a daily basis as Identity Guard or other credit monitoring companies do. Instead, they use their database scanning technology to see if there are signs that you are already a victim or about to become one. This is called your baseline report. If you ok everything in this report they continue to monitor it monthly. If there are changes to your baseline report you are notified and you can either approve them, or if there are any inaccuracies such as a credit line you did not open, you simply notify them and they take further steps looking in to each situation at a deeper level, correcting the inaccuracy and, if need be, restoring your identity.

There are three things we really like about Id Watchdog. First of all, they not only protect you from financial identity theft but all types of identity theft including medical and criminal. Secondly, they have the most straight forward guarantee in the business. They guarantee to restore your identity 100% of the time and will work tirelessly on your behalf until they have. Thirdly, unlike most other identity protection companies, Id Watchdog does the work for you and you merely assist them. Many companies require you to do the work and they only provide professional guidance. In our opinion, it is much better to have a team of experts working on your behalf.

Read our ID Watchdog review for more in-depth information and to see if they are the right identity protection service for you. We have negotiated an excellent discount (25%) for you and they have agreed to give you the first 30 days free.