From the Bad Credit Repair and Debt Elimination Strategies Dept

Have you heard the news this week - about the headaches the retailer that owns the T.J. Maxx and Marshall's clothing chains is experiencing, namely nearly 46 million customer card numbers were stolen from it computers over an 18-month period?

Also, the retailer operates other store chains in North America and the U.K., and said 455,000 customers who returned merchandise without receipts had their personal data stolen, including driver's license numbers.

Why Identity Theft Protection Is a "Must Have It" Strategy

My primary interest is in helping people acheive their financial goals through real estate investing in commercial and other types of property.  Having a good credit history is very important if you want to have the best financing options available to you.  If you are a victim of identity theft, this will definitely be a hinderance to your progress.

In researching the available strategies to help clients and visitors to protect their credit profiles, prevention is the best strategy.  If you can prevent the identity theft in the first place, you avoid the time-consuming and often costly process of notifying your creditors, the credit bureaus, law enforcement and even your employer of the breach of your credit profile and the followup task of trying to remove accounts on your credit report the thief opened in your name.

Identity Theft Protection Using a Pro-Active Solution - Freeze Your Credit Report

You can actually freeze your credit so no one can open any form of credit in your name.  Your credit file is off limits to potential lenders, insurers and credit offers unless you instruct the credit bureaus to lift the freeze when necessary.  You'll even get rid of all those junk mail offers, too. With a credit lock-down, a criminal can have your name, birthday and Social Security number - but it won't matter.  No credit will be issued.

Freezing Goes Beyond Fraud Alerts

Freezing your credit is more advanced than asking the three major credit reporting agencies to place a fraud alert on your credit report.  Fraud alerts are supposed to alert you when someone applies for credit in your name and signals creditors to contact you for permission to issue credit in your name.  Creditors, however, aren't required to abide by or even check the alert.  Unbelievable, but true.

How To Freeze Your Credit If Your State Limits This Method

Unfortunately, not all states have uniform laws when it comes to freezing your credit.  California was the first state to allow freezing and New Jersey, Louisiana, Texas, Vermont, Washington and other states also allow freezing your credit.  However some states, such as Texas, limit this opportunity to those who have been the victim of identity theft or a security breach.

You don't want the option to freeze your credit after the fact.  What you want is to prevent identity theft dead in it's tracks before you become a victim.  So here's what I recommend, I found a service that freezes your credit no matter what state you live in.  The company is LifeLock. They guarantee their service to you up to $1 million. Pretty impressive. LifeLock has been featured on MSNBC, CNN, CNBC and WSJ.com.  It's a great service for individuals as well as businesses.

Remember the old saying, "prevention is the best medicine?"  I feel that LifeLock is your best "medicine" to prevent identity theft today.  Preserve your identity and your peace of mind. Check them out.

Technorati Tags: identity theft, id theft, identity theft prevention, identity theft protection, business, finance, security, safety

Related posts:

1. The Ultimate Identity Theft Protection: Freeze Your Credit From the Credit and Debt Solutions Dept My post yesterday explained the pro-active strategy of identity theft protection, namely, to freeze your credit.  In part I wrote, "You can actually freeze your...
2. Owner Occupied Commercial Mortgage Loans are Ideal for Business Owners Enjoy this brief and informative video on how to easily obtain an owner-occupied commercial mortgage loan for a wide variety of commercial properties in all 50 states.  Use 90% LTV to...
3. U.S. unemployment numbers really at Depression-era levels The unemployment report on Friday was simply a disaster. Based on the government’s payroll survey, the economy shed 85,000 jobs in December, many more than analysts had expected. Worse,...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.