How does Someone Steal your Identity?

How Does Someone Steal an Identity?

There are a number of methods a skilled identity thief may use to steal your information. These include:

- Shoulder Surfing: watching you from a nearby location as you punch in your pin codes or listening as you give someone else your personal information over the phone

- Dumpster Diving: rummaging through your trash to find bills or other documents with your name and personal information on them

- Stealing: stealing mail (including bills, credit card statements, credit card offers, and tax information), or even stealing wallets and purses to gain access to documents with your personal information on them

- Bribing: bribing employees (such as government, bank, or credit card company employees) who have access to your personal information

- Pretexting: using false pretenses to obtain your personal information from banks, phone, credit companies, and other companies

- Skimming:using a special storage device to scan and remember your credit and debit card numbers when you use your cards

- Phishing: pretending to be a financial institution or other company (like a lotto company) and sending you spam or pop-up advertisements to persuade you to reveal your personal information

- Changing your address: completing a change of address form to divert your billing statements and other mail to another location where this information is easily accessible