The Basic Workings of an Identity Theft Service

Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes within the United States. Though many consumers are aware of the issue, the numbers continue to grow. There are a lot of consumers that assume if they become a victim of identity theft, it is easy to recover. This is actually untrue. The road to recovery can actually take several years and for some consumers, it can actually last longer than their physical life to correct. By utilizing an identity theft service, consumers can at least prevent the long-term damages of identity theft and correct the damage before it becomes anything fatal to their credit history.

There are a lot of consumers that assume that an identity theft service has no value in the market. If that was the case, then there would not be so many of these types of services in business today. In fact, there is quite a need for an identity theft service, as apparent by the growing number of victims that fall to identity theft each year.

How an Identity Theft Service Works

It should be noted that an identity theft service cannot protect you 100 percent from becoming a victim of identity theft, but if you pair an identity theft service with your own prevention methods, you can limit your chances that much more. An identity theft service performs several functions:

• Monitor your credit reports from all three major credit reporting agencies (Equifax, TransUnion and Experian) and notify you of any additions and/or changes
• Monitor internet databases for illegal use or posting of your personal information and automatically remove this information
• Some will monitor your bank and credit card accounts for any suspicious charges or inaccuracies
• Monitor public records such as sex offender registries, traffic court, etc
• Remove your name from any pre-approval offers and other junk mail databases to limit your risk of having your mail stolen

An identity theft service cannot fully protect any consumer. There are a lot of things a consumer needs to do on their own in order to protect themselves from becoming victims. Some of those things that consumers can do in order to protect themselves are:

• Shredding important documents or any document that contains personal information prior to throwing it away
• Always using strong passwords on computers and for website log-ons to prevent your system from easily being hacked
• Utilizing anti-virus and anti-spyware software on your computer
• Using credit monitoring services