Gamer’s World

College Students: How to Protect Yourself from Identity Thieves

You might think that identity thieves focus entirely on the wealthy, but the reality is that 34% of the victims of identity theft are college students. College students can be easy prey because they don’t know how to protect themselves against identity theft, because so many records and documents include personal information about them, and because of the phenomenal amount of junk mail offers…especially from credit card companies…they receive.

To protect themselves against identity theft, students and parents can use these tips, offered by LifeLock CEO Todd Davis. LifeLock is the nation’s first identity theft prevention service for individual consumers.

1. Purchasing and using a shredder is a must. Shred everything which can identify you before discarding it. Everything…no exceptions.

2. College students generally share housing and live in close proximity to lots of other students. As a result, many people are in and out of their living areas, including people they may not know well. Therefore, to protect against identity theft, students should not leave identifying documents where they can be easily found, and should password protect important information on their computers.

3. Students should request and review their credit reports each and every year. They can get one report a year at no cost, and identify any existing or potential credit-related problems they may have.

4. In the most recent three years, more than two hundred universities, colleges, school districts and student lending organizations have lost personal information on nearly 9 million students, faculty, and staff. Despite increases in institutional security, social security numbers and other critical identifiers are lost or stolen at a steady pace. Thus, it makes sense to take steps to make sure you have protected your identity in the event your information becomes vulnerable to identity thieves.

5. Reduce your junk mail. All of us have mailboxes jammed with offers for credit cards, instant credit, and merchandise. Opt out of these and other junk mail and pre-approved credit card offers. Identity thieves can steal these offers from your mailbox or trash (remember the shredder). Then, in a matter of minutes, they fill out those applications, change your address to theirs, and subsequently charge their purchases to you.

6. Have free fraud alerts placed on personal information. Fraud alerts, offered by the major credit bureaus at no cost, mean that credit agencies will contact you directly to get your approval whenever someone tries to open a new credit account in your name or change your address. Thus, even if a thief manages to obtain your information, you can potentially stop him or her from opening new a new account or making an address change on an existing one. You can request fraud alerts yourself, but you must renew them several times a year, and they can fail if the creditors don?t make the call (as they are supposed to). Paying a company a small monthly fee to take care of the fraud alerts for you may be a good option, especially if the company offers you an identity theft guarantee.

Taking a bit of time and exercising some caution to prevent identity theft is well worth the effort. Protect yourself by being cautious, aware, and alert.

Smart-with-Money Mindset Needed

Unlike the popular belief we are told over and over again, credit cards are not free money. If you are not cautious enough, it can be the straightforward way to financial hell. There is some good news though. Your way out is still possible with efforts from your part.

Many experts say that one of the best hidden ways to get rid of credit card debt, that your bank don’t tell you about, is with the use of a debt consolidation loan. If you have a number of credit cards then a consolidation loan may be a good advice. This comes along with a condition though. Be ready to give up your cards because these accounts will be suspended by your credit card lender. A good indication that you need this is when you are already having missed payments for three or more consecutive months. This is much better than to suffer the consequences of a negatively impacted credit rating.

But if you happen to have already a hard time paying the credit card bills on time each due date, this is definitely the best choice. Sacrificing the rest of your cards is one great way to avoid your credit rating from having a negative impact with the banks because of missed payments.

Talk with your bank officer you deal with most of the time. This is the time where your relationship with the bank is most important so bear that in mind for the future. Explore what kinds of debt consolidation schemes and services they offer. Search for other loan providers you have business with in the past. This allows you to compare and ensures you to have the best chances to get the lowest possible interest rates or the best terms for your financial needs.

You might be required to provide your lender with collateral. This depends on the amount of credit card debts you have to consolidate. With the tight credit availability, this ensures the lender should you fail to pay on the loan. By far, home equity is the most frequent form of collateral used for this purpose. Some forms of collateral are lands and other real estates, vehicles, or other assets.

The bottom line is that you have had a poor financial record because of bad spending habits in the past. Learn from this tough situation and never repeat the process with your financial impulses. Be practical and be financially-smart! In no time, you will regain that bad credit rating and start all over again.

For more information, see more details on how to get rid of debt with Paul J. Easton.

A Program to Help Get You Out of Debts

When you recognize that you have so much credit card debts hanging over your head, you may be surprised to come across the point realizing that you basically do not have enough money coming in to pay all those debts and cannot probably afford the basic living expenses. A lot of people make this mistake of maximizing their credit cards to the extent that they cannot cope with the timely payments. They thought of setting aside these problems and plans to pay them later. In reality, however, this plan does not happen and they end up having more debt.

If you realize in yourself to have this same unfortunate situation, you must take a step backward and have an assessment with the situation. Face the reality and ask for some help. But this does not mean that you may automatically have to file for bankruptcy; not unless we find some help first.

You can find help how to get rid of credit card debt with the aid of a legitimate, non-profit credit counseling program. Debt counseling and credit counseling are related services offered in these programs. The terms are constantly interchanged do a definition for both terms are provided. Credit counseling services are aimed to teach consumers about their debt and how to make use of their credit intelligently. Debt counseling services, on the other hand, are offered for consumers who have not followed a sound financial advice and are usually dealing a larger amount of debt than they can manage to pay for.

There are various credit counseling programs out there that offer these services to help you get out of your debt. Be wary, though, not all have your best interests at heart, there are some agencies that only want to take advantage of you. Remember to take your time and search for a sincere credit counseling agency with a long history of good reputation. This makes you confident that you will be making a decision that will lend a hand to you in this problematic situation rather than worsen this already bad situation.

Your counseling agency will work with you in determining the right financial plan and will assist you on submitting proposals to all of your credit card lenders. With their guidance, you increase your chances that lenders will accept the terms you have come up with. Typically, the proposals include a request to end all late and extra fees on the account and, if still negotiable, lower the interest rates to a more reasonable rate.

In addition to helping you get rid of credit card debt, your credit counseling program will likely educate you how to better handle your money. This will direct you steer clear of financial mess in the future. After all, teaching you how to manage your money, and keep it, is the number one goal of every counseling program.

Your Credit Card Match

Not all credit cards can match up your needs and demands of this fast changing society. You could end up being unhappy with being a credit card holder if you have not chosen the right credit card. So how could you choose the credit card that would suit your lifestyle? I guess the answer is at the creditcardsclub.com. I have seen the most reliable credit card rating and reviews from their site lately. Any credit card holder or someone who is still trying to find a better credit card could surely get the one they are looking for because of how they have done their ratings.

Credit cards are becoming very useful nowadays. If you do not have one right now I think you would have to get one soon. Many people have complaints about unreliable credit cards but who should be blamed? I think that if you want to have the best credit card, you must be responsible in choosing. You may think that the other credit cards are unreliable because it does not match you. Why would many of us still use credit cards if they do not give us satisfaction? That only means one thing. You have to get the one which you think would give you no headaches.

Read the credit card review at the creditcardsclub.com now and you would surely get what you are looking for.