According to FTC identity theft is one of the largest consumer complaint in the country after the auction fraud. The most important aspect of identity theft is that the people of which identity was stolen don’t know about this fact just until they check their credit score. Generally, people use expensive services like: credit repair and monitoring, id theft insurance or credit card insurance. This services aren’t a bad thing, but most of them are pretty expensive. In order to reduce your cost  and avoid identity theft you should try to follow some or all of the next steps:

1. Do a check on your credit report regularly. I think you must get a credit report tree months to be assured that you don’t have errors and fraud. This check must be done and extended also for your family members in order to eliminate any doubt. You can get a credit report free on this websites :
- www.annualcreditreport.com
- www.equifax.com
- www.experian.com
- www.transunion.com
After you get a report you can tell if you are a identity theft victim or not.

2.Take a GOOD look on your credit card statements. You must assure that you haven’t been billed for products/services that you didn’t buyied. The fraudsters check your credit card through online merchants and donation sites by placing a small fee from $1 to $5.

3. Enroll your cards. Visa and MasterCard offer good services for identity theft protection. Follow this sites and the instructions on it and your id should be more safe.
- Verified by VISA – www.verifiedbyvisa.com
- SecureCode by MasterCard – www.mastercard.com/securecode/

4. Use a credit freeze. You can freeze your credit report, meaning that nobody, even if they have your Social Security ( SSN) number, can access your credit report until you provide a personal identification number, also known as PIN.

5. Avoid dealing with checks. To protect your identity try to avoid checks because it have many personal information on them, which can be used by fraudsters, and also they can copy it.

6. Don’t be a victim of phishing. This phenomenon has gone to a big scale, so your chance to exposed your information through fake sites has increased. Don’t open mails from unknown senders or companies. For better phishing protection check my others posts.

7. When you shop online try to use only big , known sites or try to find feedback from another customers.

8. Stay focused on every discussion because if it is let’s say, a phone interview for a fake job they will try to ask you sensitive information like security social number or date of birth.

9. Pay attention on what you throw in trash. A good list of things that you don’t want to throw in order to protect you from identity theft is here

10. Use fraud alerts. I tried to find a free service, but in order to get a decent identity theft protection you must use a paid service. Some of the best services are required for a small fee like $10/month, but they provide the best identity theft protection. You can use:
- Life Lock Click here to get a 10% discount.

- IdentityTruth 7 Day Free Trial

Bottom line: except point 10 you can protect your identity for free, so this is the reason why YOU are the best identity theft protection.

Be safe