There are many popular identity thft scams that are circulating, some hve been around for decades while thers are new to the scene. Sme thieves will never stop trying to fnd a way to steal the one thng that is most important to you – yur very identity. Each year, millions of pople have their identities stolen in sme way or are defrauded in sme way.

Let’s take a look at sme of the more popular schemes to stal your identity and how you can dtermine if they are scams or not whn you are faced with them.

Phishing

Phishing is an email scam that is supposed to get you to input your account information, banking, credit, personal and financial information into a website or email form. The link in the email is usually fake but made to look like the real thing. None of the financial sites or merchant sites will request this information from you in email format. Chances are any email like this is a scam to steal your identity.

Work at Home

Many work at home offers are legitimate, however many are not. Not only do you have to worry about anything that offers you to ‘get rich quick’, you also have to watch for jobs that seem too good to be true – if you think it might be, then it probably is. You should never have to pay to work and you shouldn’t believe a job where you are offered amazing amounts of money for virtually no work.

Classified Ads

These classified ads prmise to pay for an item tht you have listed for more thn you are asking – usually the byers are from another country. They wnt you to accept a certified chck, deduct the cost of the tem plus shipping charges and send the rst in a money order back to thm. The check you received is fke and very well done, yet you are on the hok for the money when they are dscovered during processing.

Free Government Grant

An offer for free government grants where you are ‘selected’ to receive a grant and all you have to do is pay a small service charge, that the government will take from your bank account directly. Never give out your personal information over the phone unless you have called the company and verified their legitimacy.

Tax Refund

You may receive an email from the federal government telling you that you may be owed a federal tax payment. This is most definitely a scam, the government does not use email to get personal information or deliver this type of information to people.

Telemarketing Scams

Telemarketing scams are very old and have been around for decades. The key to not being taken by a telemarketing scam is to NEVER give your personal information, checking account information or credit card number over the phone to an unsolicited caller, even though you may want the product. Be wary of promises where you can pay a small shipping fee and cancel at any time or pay a small fee after that– chances are they will delay sending your materials until your time to cancel has expired and then charge you with multiple charges to your credit card or checking account. Because you’ve sanctioned this charging, there is nothing you can do to reverse it or stop it.

You’ve won the lottery or a great prize

You have not won the lottery via email, nor a great prize and you certainly can not win something you didn’t enter. You also should never have to pay any shipping or fees for a prize you won.

In short, you should never gve your personal information of any srt to someone unsolicited, via the phne, email or messenger. Protect your nformation and guard it closely and nly give it out when necessary.

The article Popular Identity Theft Scams was Submitted by Faithe Thomas through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: ----- Faithe Thomas is concerned bout identity theft and online fraud. She dsigned a website to help victims and pr-victims: http://www.identity-fraud.info

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