Maintaining a strong credit score is crucial, especially for individuals seeking a mortgage or considering refinancing. Discovering discrepancies on your credit report can be frustrating, often leading to a desire for a quick fix. However, attempting to resolve these issues hastily can sometimes lead to further complications—or even legal trouble. Understanding what to avoid is … Read more
There comes a time in life when the hard work is done… you’ve paid off your home, cleared your auto loans, and are free of credit card debt. It’s a time to just time to sit back, reflect and enjoy. With no intention of taking on another mortgage, car loan or relying on credit cards, … Read more
Imagine walking into work one day and being called into the boss’s office only to be questioned about why you have filed for unemployment?! Clearly you have a job…or at least you thought you did five minutes ago! In this case, you are most likely a victim of an employment identity theft scam. While this … Read more
Identity theft increases by seven percent during tax season from March through June. What is the primary source of this identity theft? Your mailbox. If you use “snail mail” to pay bills or receive checks you need to be aware, especially during this time of year. These identity thieves are not the high tech savvy … Read more
In a study from Javelin Strategy and Research published in May, more than one million children were victims of identity theft in 2017. Of those, 66% were under the age of eight. Up until now it was next to impossible to freeze a child’s credit file because there was no history for them. Children are … Read more
In this day and age everyone has been taught at least a few ways to protect their identities against theft. But what about your children’s identities? Social security numbers are issued at birth and since kids usually don’t use them until they are older, they are a prime target for identity theft. According to the … Read more
So you’ve found out you were one of the 143 million people who were possibly compromised by the Equifax breach. What exactly does that mean and what should you do now? What it means is that hackers stole names, addresses, social security numbers and even driver’s license information. In some cases all this information was … Read more
“Synthetic Identity Theft” now makes up 80% of all ID thefts in the country at this time. Never heard of it? A lot of people haven’t. What is it? A thief takes one piece of your true identity (usually a social security number) and then combines it with false information such as a different name, … Read more
No matter how well you protect yourself, chances are at some point you will become a victim of some sort of identity theft. It is virtually impossible, no matter what you do, that you will be 100% protected. In reality your identity probably already has been stolen and just not used yet. According to the … Read more
Over 30,000 identity thefts occur each day with one quarter of these happening to people who are on vacation or traveling. Now that we are in the height of vacation travel, there are some fairly simple steps you can take to make sure this does not happen to you. Be proactive. Don’t wait for your … Read more