Protecting yourself from Identity Theft is about keeping your personal information safe when you’re online. Your personal details (full name, date of birth, address, credit card details, invoice numbers etc) can all be very useful and valuable to a scammer who will try and steal this information to commit illegal activities. That could include unauthorised purchases, or using personal information to impersonate you to get further information from a supplier or business who may provide services to you. They may even look to on sell your information to other more sophisticated scammers.
It can be devastating to have this happen, and can often take many months of your personal time and effort to try and resolve the situation. So, a few tips:
– be very careful sharing information about yourself online, including in social media, blogs and other online forums;
– think twice before entering online competitions where you have to provide personal information to someone you may not know – giving away personal details is just like giving them money!; and
– watch out for scammers impersonating major corporate organisations that you may or may not deal with, presenting you with an invoice for payment – double check everything, and if it doesn’t look right, reach out to the organisation and confirm.
If you think you’ve been the victim of a scammer, get in touch with IDCARE (Australia and New Zealand’s National Identity and Cyber Support service) at www.idcare.org.
If you like to know more about scams, identity theft and keeping safe when online, reach out to Conquered IT, and attend an upcoming training session. Call us on 0468 988 438, or check out www.conqueredit.com.au.
