Simple steps to protect identity against theft.

Almost every week you can read a story about someone learning about the debt he never used or authorities busting gangs of identity thieves who spent hundred or thousands and sometimes millions of dollars stolen from unaware citizens.

Naturally you can follow tabloid media desire, get paranoid and watch more news TV waiting for more stolen identity drama. Don't get me wrong, just like most of you I feel deeply sorry for the victims and very angry at the bad guys but at the same time I think you can react differently than to most news drama that happens completely independently from your actions. Identity theft is a serious problem and if you become a victim it would take a lot of time and hassle to untangle the damage done even though your innocent and nobody says you're guilty.

In order to act correctly you need to realize and understand the problem. There are a few factors that majority of the public is not aware of.

1. Part of your identity called the credit profile is bonded to your social security number
2. Even 1 day old infant may become a victim of identity theft, it doesn't happen often but it does happen
3. nobody is completely immune from identity theft, even if you're 100 years old or rich and famous like Paul Allen from Microsoft who was targeted back in the spring 2012.

Enough scary stuff, let's see who plays against who. There 4 major players in most identity theft cases. The bank or credit card company, customer, retailer and the thief. All except the theft have no interest in the crime to take place as all the players might be partially liable for the money lost, need to cooperate in the investigation and banks or retailers may need to face a security audit in case there is a valid suspicion of sensitive data leak. Here we have 3 against 1 odds which mean a really good position to win the battle. Let's see how we can build our stronghold against identity burglars.

1. Monitor your credit. There are many tools on the internet that will monitor your credit profile and alert you if an inquiry was made to one of the 3 credit information bureaus. I was able to find one, free of charge, maybe not as fancy as the paid ones but does the job; you can find it at creditkharma.com. I've been using it for myself and my folks for couple of years and I'm happy with it.

2. Monitor your spending. You can either manually check your credit and debit card purchases once a week or you can subscribe for a service to do it for you and just read reports. The problem with those services is that you need to provide username and passwords for the credit card services management websites which makes me uncomfortable. Another option is to set alerts with credit cards for specific purchases (online, amount, specific merchandise group or service) as most of providers offer these alerts at no additional charge.

3. Help your relatives to monitor their credits. A lot of older folks don't feel computer savvy and need a hand with task beyond browsing. Set the credit monitoring service for them and help monitor the alerts. Same for kids, unless you happen to live in Utah. Officials there have gone a step ahead and couple with Transunion credit bureau to monitor minors credit up to the age of 17. All parents need to do is to register on a website, from that point the service will not only monitor the credit by sending alerts but will also purge any fraudulent information if it already exists.

4. Be careful about giving out information. Utility service companies impostor occurrences are quite often reported in media. They tend to target senior citizens more than the rest of the population. If someone shows up at the doors saying he or she is from say Con Edison follow this simple list.

a) service technician should wear marked uniformrnb) all representative should be capable of producing photo identification. Custom id card should show name, position and identification numberrnc) technicians use company marked vans or pick upsrnd) it's unlikely they would ask sensitive information such as Social Security numberrne) these visits are scheduled and announced except for emergenciesrnf) don't hesitate to call the service company before letting anyone in

Nobody is immune to identity theft but as proven above you can greatly mitigate the risk with following simple steps and common sense.