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There are a number of different cases where a person might come up with problems during the course of their financial lifetimes. Aside from the different types of credit problems they might get into there is always the risk of things like credit card fraud.

With more people going to fill out credit card applications online we have witnessed an increase in the trend of these types of fraud crimes happening. It is a very unfortunate situation but it is one at the same time that must be discussed in order to not only understand what the problem stems from but also to understand how to fix the problem.

Remember that there are no problems within a person’s financial existence that can not be fixed in some way, shape or form and credit card fraud is definitely one of those fixable types of problems.

Credit card fraud is part of a larger array of crimes that are placed under the collective umbrella of identity theft. As the online credit card approval business has started to grow and more and more people are looking towards the internet to apply for credit cards the number of stalkers that are in existence have started to increase.

These types of stalkers are experts at identity theft and while this can lead to something like credit card fraud it can also lead to a number of other very undesirable circumstances. It is therefore in a person’s interest to learn how to prevent not only credit card fraud but identity theft in general as well.

Not only prevent it, but learning how to deal with a situation that has already arisen is also a very good thing to know. Many consumers agree with this opinion and the rest of this article answers some of the most frequently asked questions about the subject matter itself.

What is identity theft?

Identity theft, simply put, is the act of a person lifting your information from some source and then using that information to enact various crimes against you. A good example of identity theft occurs when you do a credit card search online.

Usually you have to input your identifying information to start a search and that information can be used against you if a person is able to lift that information from the time it is transmitted from your computer to the time that it is received in the server.

These types of actions are referred to as third party interceptions and while they used to be very common when the internet was young by and large the servers are now secure enough that at least at the end point that information can not be retrieved.

What are examples of identity theft crimes?

There are many different crimes that a person can commit when they have your identity. The most obvious one is going to be credit card fraud where a person steals your name and credit card number and then proceeds to run up a huge balance on your good credit cards and possibly even ruin your credit.

Many people have fallen into a bad credit history because they didn’t catch the identity theft and subsequent credit card fraud in time and therefore were forced to deal with the repercussions of the large balance that suddenly appeared on their credit card. If a person has your name, birthday and address then they can pretty much commit any crime against you that has to do with identity theft.

They can call in to your various accounts and get additional services delivered or alternatively if they know you are expecting a refund for services they can call in and get that refund sent to them instead. There are very many places that identity theft can come into play and as far as a crime goes it is arguably the worst one out there as far as causing permanent non life-threatening damage to a person is concerned.

How can I prevent identity theft?

There are many security features that the companies you are dealing with have in place in order to prevent identity theft from their side but at the same time there are a number of ways identity theft can be the result of your own actions. A previous paragraph mentioned the idea of hacking into a server and lifting information from it. Nowadays because so many people apply for credit cards online this is a problem that is not likely to happen very often.

The demand for Internet services have increased and because of that more money has been poured into making extremely safe and secure servers. Nowadays issues of identity theft through hacking into databases is limited to a few cases that are far between in occurrence and because of that most people that perform identity theft do so through the person themselves.

Consider what you’ve done today and how your information has been out there for people to see. If you’ve filled out credit card applications online did you remember to clear your internet cache when you were done?

Did you make sure that a hard copy of the form wasn’t saved on your hard drive or if it was it was password protected? A person can get your identity and personal information from something as innocuous as a bill that you toss into the garbage. So there are a number of things that you need to do in order to prevent this from happening.

Shred all of your bills when you are done with them; if you apply online for a credit card or other loan make sure you do so in a responsible manner and religiously safeguard the information that you’ve given them.

These are all common sense things but when combined together serve to make it very difficult for someone to lift your identity without your knowledge. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and if you are able to make sure that these types of leaks are not present within your household you’ll be coming up with many ounces of prevention indeed.