HDF428 Assignment: Identity Theft via Credit Card Fraud (Essay Sample)

Identity Theft via Credit Card Fraud
Name
Institution
Identity theft is a form of crime in which another person obtains personal information to use it in committing fraud. The fraudsters mostly target the credit card information (Tajpour, 2014). Acquired credit card data is used by the thieves to make purchases, open accounts and request loans on using the name of the original owner of the card. According to Federal Trade Commission, there are over nine million cases of identity theft reported every year in America (Gupta & Mata-Toledo, 2016). Most people do not realize when their identities are being stolen until they are shocked when their cards are declined. According to Harrell (2015), 45% of the people learn that their identities have been stolen through financial institutions while 4.7% learn when their cards are declined. In response to the menace of identity theft, many companies and institutions have come in handy to offer products that can help in monitoring cards, reimbursing the lost money and protecting against theft identity. This paper is going to examine some of the ways in which one can prevent identity theft via credit card fraud so as to avoid losing the hard earned income without incurring extra costs.
First and foremost, credit card owners ought to guard their card data while surfing the internet. Most of the credit card fraud occurs when the owners are online and especially when using public internet such as WI-FI. As people shop and bank online through public networks, the fraudsters take the advantage to acquire the card data from careless owners who do not, for example, log out their accounts after shopping. To avoid this, card owners should clear passwords and logins after using a public computer (Fire, 2014). Also, change the passwords on a monthly basis for safety purposes. When doing payments online, one needs to use credit cards that are better guaranteed through the federal law rather than the debit cards. While shopping online also one needs to be aware of phishing through which fraudsters generate pop-up messages that mimic your financial institution prompting to follow the link. Such links lead to the fraudsters accounts from which the card data is accessed. As a card owner, avoid clicking such links under all circumstances (Kahn & Liñares-Zegarra, 2015).
Credit card owners also need to keep track of their card and bank statements. People ought to find a means of checking their accounts activity on a regular basis so that they can detect when an awry activity occurs. This would call for action early enough before the fraudsters execute massive attacks such as taking a huge loan. Users need to keep a record of the transactions they make online so as to detect a new shopping that might have been performed by a fraudster. Mail addresses ought to be regularly verified with the financial institutions as well as the post offices on a regular basis to avoid a possible scenario in which the spammers fill out forms to change the mail so that the user cannot get the updates of the account's activity (Pan, 2010).
Likewise, the users should keep an eye on their credit report. According to the law, every account holder is entitled to a free report prepared by the three bureaus; Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax. One can take the advantage of the three bureaus to request a report after every four months so as to better protect the credit card theft identity. It may look tedious, but as compared to the cost of the fraud, it is way far cheaper. The request can be made online at the convenience of the internet. The report enables the users to scan the accounts for unusual activity, for instance, credit cards that were not applied for by the owner can give a clue of identity theft (Harrell, 2015).
Lastly, credit card owners should always destroy bank statements that are outdated and contain sensitive data. The best way to do this is to shredder so that there is no chance the fraudsters can recollect the information from such materials. Card applications and bills should also be destroyed as they carry account details that can be exploited by fraudsters (Wilson, 2016).
In summary, prevention of identity theft via credit card theft can easily be achieved without having to contract with a security institution provided that the user is conscious and careful while handling the theft card during shopping and banking. Most of the identity theft occurs while shopping online. This can be prevented through the clearing of passwords and changing them regularly. Other ways of preventing identity theft include keeping track of the card and bank statements, checking the cr...