Best Identity Theft Protection
Based on In-Depth Reviews

Dwight Schrute, a beloved character from The Office, couldn’t have said it better, “Identity theft is not a joke, Jim! Millions of families suffer every year!”  According to the 2019 Identity Fraud Study from Javelin Strategy and Research, in 2018 alone 14.4 million consumers were victims of identity theft. And even though the number of victims decreased from the reported number in 2017, the financial consequences were more costly for the 2018 victims.

For better or worse, that’s the world we live in. Before the age of the internet, identity theft could happen whenever social security cards or licenses were stolen, but now we have to worry about our information in the digital world too.

That’s why we need to take steps to protect ourselves and our loved ones the best we can. Though we can’t control every little thing, or big things like a data breach or stolen records, we can do our best to be alert and control our information.

And for us to better protect ourselves, we need to know the…

Common Identity Theft Strategies

Though we are in the internet age, many of the old identity theft tricks are still thriving. For example, stealing documents remains a tried-and-true method. Best advice: keep your social security card somewhere safe, not in your wallet. If you can, don’t take all your credit cards with you if you are not using them. And shred or otherwise destroy all papers you want to discard that have your personal information on them.

Also, the classic phone scam is alive and well, but they’ve become more sophisticated. Technology has helped thieves to “spoof” phone numbers, which means they can manipulate the number shown on your caller ID. The best way to combat this is to not give away personal identifiable information, PII for short, and report the incident to the FTC.

Phishing

There are many newer ways that identity thieves steal your information through digital means. Phishing is one of the most common. The bad guys send you emails to encourage you to click on links contained in them. Those links often take you to web forms that ask for your PII, maybe to “verify your account.” Once you enter your PII and send off the web form, your information is in the hands of the scammers.

Here are two email examples one of our coworkers received to her personal email just this month:

As you can see, there are some tell-tale signs that these emails are fake. For example:

• The email subject line is sketchy.
• The email address it comes from is not from Netflix.
• The greeting doesn’t include the name of the person.
• There’s an invitation to click a link and update billing information.

However, not all email scams are so poorly done. Email scams have been evolving since their “Nigerian prince” email scam days. Former FBI Agent R.L. Walters, an expert on identity theft we consulted, agrees that they are just getting craftier and more convincing.

"That's how they make a lot of people fall for [email scams],” he said. “They make them look legitimate."

When an email looks official and asks for PII, one has to be even more careful. For the tech-savvy among us, Walters suggests looking at the metadata of the email to check for the originator of the message. “If you look through the metadata, you can tell if it's a legitimate email or a phishing email,” he said.

Formjacking

Other popular digital scams are online shopping scams and formjacking. If you are paying an online merchant, make sure that the website you are putting your credit card information into is secure. A secure website’s address will begin with https://. It will also have an image of a lock or say “secure,” depending on the browser you are using. When you click on the lock, it tells you if the certificate of the website is valid. If the merchant doesn’t match these criteria, stay away.

But what happens when you buy from a reputable company and their website gets hacked? Unfortunately, it has happened. Formjacking is the digital version of credit card skimming. Criminals can skim the information you input in the billing section of the website. Unfortunately, we are all at risk.

"It's important for consumers to do what they can not to unnecessarily expose their information. For instance, the standard advice about not giving out your Social Security [number] or not leaving your personal information lying around the household where others might see it, these are some common sense things that people can do to protect their information,” said Susan Grant, Director of Consumer Protection and Privacy at the Consumer Federation of America.

How Identity Theft Can Affect You

As we have learned, we are all at risk. As such, we were curious and created an anonymous survey for the people in our company. We thought it would be interesting to see how often a group of educated, professional people had been victimized by identity theft. We found 35.8% of our coworkers have had their identities stolen. The most common ways this happened were from having their ID cards and documents stolen and having their data swiped in massive data breaches.

We also asked our colleagues if they knew people who had been victims. A shocking 75.5% said yes, and 12.5% said they knew 6 or more people who had been victims of this crime. Though highly anecdotal, this little experiment combined with all our research shows us that identity theft is now a commonplace occurrence that affects people in different ways.

Take Jaroldi G., for example. Someone took out one of the seven social security cards you are allotted in your lifetime and is using her PII to work in the state of Louisiana. She discovered her identity was stolen because her previous workplace was using ADP system for payroll and tax documents. When she looked for her tax documents, she found an additional set of documents from a manufacturing company in Louisiana. It was a lucky coincidence that they both had to use the same payroll system.

After finding out, she followed the steps outlined on the Social Security website and called the company in Louisiana to alert them to the situation. When the man using her stolen identity was confronted, he left the company, never to return. For now, the perpetrator hasn’t stolen any money. In fact, he opened a credit line that he never used. After that, Jadoldi had to ask for a credit freeze. However, this doesn’t mean that the situation is less worrisome.

“I had to go to the Social Security Office four times in two months to investigate the issue,” said Jaroldi. “I have to go every year to verify the workplaces I have in my history.” She also had to go to the IRS and bring evidence about her situation, which has also become a worry since the person using the PII is not paying taxes.

“I was scared, and I looked for [the perpetrator] on the internet. The fact that someone is using my information is disconcerting”, she said.

Many people who’ve gone through what Jaroldi has would describe their experience as unnerving. “It is not just losing money. It can lead to stress or physical problems. There are many issues that can arise that have nothing to do with losing money [when your identity is stolen],” said Grant. The Identity Theft Resource Center creates a yearly report called Aftermath about effects that victims of this crime experienced like the ones mentioned by Mrs. Grant.

There are also cases where victims experience monetary losses. Around 2011 in the city of Los Angeles, Heidi R.’s bank account was cleaned out for all but $10. She immediately called the bank, and after going through her statements, discovered a pattern of unauthorized withdrawals.

The bank returned her money two months later. The person who was using her account information was found, but Heidi decided not to press charges since the process was too difficult. However, even though she learned and keeps her information safeguarded, that did not stop identity thieves from striking again. Unauthorized debits hit another account from another bank, even though she rarely used it and had never purchased anything online with it. This time, it took six months for her to be reimbursed by the bank.

“I was angry and frustrated,” said Heidi R. “I was desperate because I needed to pay my rent. I was not sure I could secure my roof for that month.”

Identity theft can hit anyone, even kids. This is why it’s so important to be on top of your financial records and be careful how we share our personal information.

Compounding the difficulty of keeping your personal information away from criminals is the fact that the social media industry relentless promotes the public sharing of details about us and our lives. For that reason, social media profiles and posts have become a great source of information that identity thieves use to hack into your financial accounts.

When discussing the information that’s shared in social media, Walters said, “[Information shared] makes it easier for criminals. Less is more as far as I'm concerned. You should never share any information of a private nature [on social media platforms]. I know people do, but I don't think is smart.”

When investigators do what they do best, they usually go to social media and learn a lot about the people they are looking into. On the other hand, criminals are doing the same. Information such as birthdays, addresses, addresses, email addresses, check-ins, parents’ names, and such should be kept off social media.

Resources for Victims

Identity theft is such a frequent occurrence that in recent years, resources designed to prevent it have become much more common than they were in decades past. For example, Google developed in partnership with the Net Safety Collaborative and National Association for Media Literacy Education a program called “Be Internet Awesome” to teach kids responsible communication, online security, how to spot fake news, among other skills.

Below are some resources for victims of identity theft:

• Federal Trade Commission: Guide for Assisting Identity Theft Victims
• Social Security: Fraud Prevention and Reporting
• Internal Revenue Service: Taxpayer Guide to Identity Theft
• Office of Inspector General: Medical Identity Theft
• Consumer Federation of America: Victim Resources for Identity Theft
• Identity Theft Resource Center