Identity Theft – Simple Ways To Avoid Being the Victim

If you’re not concerned about identity theft happening to you, then you should be. The worrying truth is that one out of every four Australians has been the victim of this modern paradigm and it’s not looking like changing anytime soon. So, being complacent about the problem is not wise, as it can happen to anyone at any time.

However, before you start losing sleep over it, not only can a private detective  help you find the culprit if it does ever happen, but there are also a number of simple things that you can do to keep the door firmly shut on these anonymous criminals – something you learn more about by reading on.

Be Careful With Your Personal Documents

As a reputable private investigator  will tell you, it really does pay to be careful what you do with your documentation. We’re talking about bank statements, medical records or anything else sensitive that contains your name, address and other personal information. So, the last thing you want to be doing is putting this kind of thing in the rubbish bin. It just makes the chance of identity theft that much easier for the perpetrators.

Believe it or not, identity thieves will go through your bins and letter box for this kind of thing and when they come across anything with your details on them, they can use them to set up accounts, take out hire purchase agreements and much more besides. If you have to throw this kind of documentation away, make sure you put it through a cross-cutting shredder first.

If You Move – Redirect ALL of Your Mail

When you’re dealing with any of your personal details, you need to channel your inner private investigator  and think about what an identity thief might be able to use. For instance, when you move home, you should be sure to redirect all of your mail to your new address.

You have no control over who moves into your home after you leave and if you don’t arrange a redirect straight away, all kinds of important documentation, bank account information and more can end up being delivered into the wrong hands. The good news is that sorting it out with Australia Post is pretty easy and really cheap too.

Never, EVER Respond to Unsolicited Online Approaches

In the online world, identity theft is becoming ever more sophisticated in the ways that the identity thieves try to dupe people into giving away their sensitive information. Once upon a time, ‘phishing’ or ‘scam’ emails were pretty easy to spot, but these days, it’s quite hard to tell the difference – unless you know what to look for. We know of office buldings in some African and Asain counties where people come to work every day with their aim to con you out of something.

The channels identity thieves use are numerous too, with scam messages now coming through via SMS text message, WhatsApp or any of the many social media platforms that now exist. A private detective  will also know that you don’t have to physically give away any info to compromise yourself, as you only have to open an email attachment to unleash malware that puts all of your info at risk.

If in doubt, never EVER respond to a message that asks you to divulge anything about yourself and if suspect early enough, we’d recommend not opening at all.

Think You May Have Been Targeted? Give Us a Call!

In the modern day, the vast majority of private detective agency  firms are very familiar with identity theft and the many ways in which it’s perpetrated and at Gold Coast Investigations we’re no different. So, if you suspect that you might have been an unwitting victim of identity fraudsters, then we urge you to give us a call, which you can do by contacting us on 07 5646 9716.

God forbid it happens to you, but if it were to, we would use our skill, expertise and proven methods to find out what happened, how it happened and with a little bit of luck, who carried it out. Then there’s a chance you might be able to pursue that person for a criminal complaint and recover what you’ve lost. Either way, you get some kind of peace of mind.

This is far from the only type of matter we can help with too, so If you’d like to know more about us and the many personal and commercial issues we can assist you with, visit us online at www.goldcoastinvestigations.com.au  or call us on our local number 07 5646 9716