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Identity Theft Protection and Awareness for Travelers

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Identity Theft is one of the fastest growing crimes of the 21stCentury. As a traveler, you should know the unobvious ways thatyou can become a victim of this serious crime and how you canprotect yourself and your family. Travel plans are made over the internet, the telephone, inperson at a physical location or faxed in. It does not matter.Each method has a level of risk. Regardless of how you book yourreservations, your personal information will still end up on thecompany's computer and stored in their databases. The company will put your personal information on theircomputers manually if necessary. Many companies (including somelarge major corporations) do not protect your personalinformation the way they are suppose to. They store and transferyour information without using the proper safeguards. So when acriminal hacks into the company's computer and steals personalinformation, they will steal everybody's personal informationregardless of how you originally gave it to the company. Usually they do not just steal a couple of dozen people'spersonal information. Normally when they are able to get yourpersonal information from the computer of a merchant, company ororganization that stored it on a badly or unprotected database,they will steal thousands or millions or people's identity atone time. If you become a victim of Identity Theft, your life can suddenlyturn into a totally unbelievable and unimaginable disaster. Thelonger you take to correct the problem, the worse it willcontinue to get. Therefore, you should concentrate on protecting yourself byprevention rather than risk having to go through the entirestressful, very time consuming and sometimes expensiveprocedures to recover by clearing your name and correcting yourcredit report. Anybody can become an Identity Theft victim, but TRAVELERS aremore like huge walking targets with flashing neon lights allaround them which makes it very easy for them to become victims.Travelers very often neglect to take the very basic common sensesteps to protect themselves and their families from this crime.Identity Theft continues to increase because while criminals areeducating themselves getting technologically smarter, manypeople are just letting their guard down and going around withthe attitude that "It can't happen to me". It is much worse than just having someone steal your credit cardand then go on a shopping spree. Once criminals steal youridentity, they can get new credit cards, open new accounts, takeout new loans and leave all of these unpaid bills in your nameto end up on your credit report. You might even be arrested forcrimes that you did not commit. What all started out to be a fun family vacation or a requiredbusiness trip, could result in you having your good credittotally destroyed if you are not careful. Whether you are at the hotel front desk checking in, at a carrental company or anywhere else, whenever you allow your creditor debit card to leave your sight, you are at risk for becomingan Identity Theft victim. A few years ago, I was very lucky when I had to deal with a carrental company. I got to learn a very important lesson the EASYway, before any serious damage had occurred. Most people are notthat lucky. The whole experience made me become more aware ofthe unobvious ways of becoming a victim of Identity Theft whichin my case all started with Credit Card Fraud. I received my credit card in the mail several weeks earlier, butI did not activate it. On the day I needed to rent a car for oneday, I called and activated the credit card. The Car RentalCompany I used is well known and one of the largest in theworld. I went into the company in person. No part of thetransaction was done over the phone or on the internet. I did not use that credit card for anything else after that day.So the only ones who had my credit card number was this carrental company. My monthly credit card bill was suppose to be atotal of about $25. However, there were several charges madeevery few days in the range between $20 to about $50 that Inever made. The total charges were over $400. Unlike most people with this problem, I was able to immediatelycall my credit card company and I told them the name of the CarRental Company that was responsible for this fraudulentactivity. I even sent them copies of the paper work so that theycould follow up with their investigation and identify thespecific employee who was the only person who I had ever givenmy credit card information to since I activated the credit card.They deleted all of the fraudulent charges and credited myaccount. The whole case was resolved very fast and easily. Verylittle time had elapsed. I am still 100% absolutely sure that the Car Rental Company wasresponsible for neglecting to protect my credit cardinformation. However, to this day I still do not know how


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ithappened. Maybe the employee that I gave my credit card to used it tocommit the crime. He could have just carelessly left my personalinformation on his computer screen or on a piece of paper on hisdesk, walked away for a few minutes while another employeepassed by and took it knowing that the 1st employee would beblamed if anything happen. Another possibility is that he couldhave thrown away a piece of paper that had my information on itwhich he did not shred properly and somebody that went throughthe trash found it and started using it. Or as we discussed,somebody from outside of the company could have hacked into thecar rental company's computer and stole my personal informationalong with a few hundred to several thousand other customers. Part of the reason why Identity Theft is on the rise andcontinuing to escalate is because unlike other crimes, there areso many people who do not realize the fact that they are at riskand they live in denial until something happens to them. Travelers often go to restaurants. Most people would not walkdown a dark alley in the middle of the night in a known highcrime area because they know it is not safe. They clearlyunderstand the risk involved. It seems really simple. But these same people will go to a restaurant and at the end ofthe meal, the waiter gives them the bill. They think nothing ofgiving their credit card to the waiter who walks away with it.People will sit there at the table completely clueless, unawareof the dangerous risk they just exposed themselves to. Theywatch their credit cards disappear out of their sight for a fewmoments after voluntarily giving them to a complete stranger.That is all it takes for a crime to initiate. Restaurants and any other place of business could have thecustomers walk up to the cash register and let them give theircredit cards to the cashier right over the counter, run thecredit cards in front of the customers so it never leaves thecustomers' sight. It is probably safer to use your credit cardson the internet using secure websites than it is to give it to awaiter to pay your restaurant bill, who walks away with it for aperiod of time. Do you to call on the phone to book your reservations for yourairline ticket, hotel, cruise, or car rental and you give yourcredit card information over the phone? First the obvious, you know it is not safe to give your creditcard information to a telemarketer who is a total stranger andcalls you at your home. But do you know the risk of calling a company yourself to placeany kind of an order and giving your credit card informationover the phone? This may be less obvious. Telemarketing is the easiest jobanybody can get. Positions are for both inbound and outboundcalls. Even with no experience, you can still walk into acompany in the morning and all you have to show is someenthusiasm, motivation, the ability to read a sales script,knowledge of some basic computer skills and you may be workingon the phones the same day. It is not unusual that there is no criminal background check, nopersonal reference check, no employment history check, no drugscreening test AND in many cases the people working astelemarketers are not always employees, they are often timesworking as Independent Contractors. Also, there is often a veryhigh turn over rate at call centers. So what does all of this have to do with you as a traveler? Youcould be giving your credit card information to people who haveunknown backgrounds and highly questionable integrity andcharacter. They may be long gone by the time you realize thatanything is wrong and you find yourself dealing with all kindsof credit problems. The bottom line is, nobody is completelysafe. When it comes to Identity Theft, you cannot entirelycontrol whether you will become a victim. But there are certainprotection steps travelers can take toward prevention and tominimize your risks. Be sure to take all safety precautions. Use a firewall on your computer. Monitor your credit on regularbases for any unusual and/or questionable activity. You shouldbe able to understand credit report or have a Fraud Specialistassist you with identifying and alerting you to fraud issues. Itis safer for you to know rather than to guess. That way you candetect and respond quickly to fraudulent activity. If somebody does manage to steal your identity, then you need tofind out about it in the earliest stages possible so you cantake immediate action before things get completely out ofcontrol and you can get your life back to normal as soon aspossible. About the author: Stephanie Gibbs created http://www.travelcheaphotline.com toeducate people about Travel Safety for crime prevention andprovide solutions with a FREE Travel Safety List available to beprinted right off the website. It also promotes fun & amazingoffers for people with low limited budgets.

Written by: Stephanie Gibbs

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