Could Your Identity Be Stolen Though The Postal Service

Hello my friends,

I would like to write today about one of the ways criminals are gathering information in regards to Identity Theft. I’m sure everybody reading this is aware of what identity theft is. We tend to only consider the dangers of putting our social security number into web pages or using our credit card at unsecured locations though.

Actually there are many ways that criminals use to gather information that would be used to steal your identity. One that you may not be aware of is very simply by getting the U.S. Postal Service to send it to them. You say “what?’ Read on.

Anytime you change your address you are able to get your mail forwarded to that new address by going to the Post Office and requesting a change of address form. This is a post card sized form that you fill out with your name, old address, and new address. Your mail, which is still addressed to the old address, then comes to you at your new residence.

This usually works for at least a month to three months giving you time to get a change of address to everybody who needs to contact you. Unfortunately this is one of the popular ways for a criminal to steal your identity also. They fill out a card with your information on it and they’re address then they just go to the mail box and gather your bills, credit card applications, bank statements… I’m sure I don’t have to go on.

So what to do. Take notice of the amount of mail that you are used to receiving. If all the sudden you are getting less or maybe even none. You might want to check with the Postal Service to find out what is going on. It might be nice not receiving any bills in the mail but with the information that tends to be on them you sure don’t want a stranger receiving them for you.

One thing I would personally encourage you do to protect yourself is, get some good Identity Theft Protection. You can get some here for a very affordable price.

http://www.hartlinefinancial.com/