Daniel Kay

Identity Theft is becoming a concern for many college students and young professionals these days. According to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, it costs victims around 5 billion dollars yearly and research has shown that the highest risk for this crime is between the ages of 18 and 24 years old.

Why And How?

Identity thieves easily target these young ones mainly because it’s easy to access their personal information through shared dorms and apartments with virtual strangers as well as negligence on the part of these youngsters who leave their account information on their computers and smartphones and such items can just as easily be stolen from them. They are also prone to using the same username and passwords for a variety of accounts that makes it easy for identity thieves to access all their accounts. Aside from that, college students and young professionals usually have a clean credit record.

A stolen phone or computer can be an avenue to get personal information, social security card laying around in the dorm gets stolen and identity is stolen just as easily. Imagine right after graduation and you realize that you are already in thousands of dollars of debt with a completely wrecked credit score because you didn’t realize that your identity has already been stolen.

How to Protect Yourself?

One way to protect yourself is to buy a paper shredder and ensure that billings statements, credit card offers and any document that may contain personal information like social security numbers, full name, credit card number and the likes are shredded before getting thrown in the trash. Dumpster diving has been a way for identity thieves to get personal information since most students throw away mailed-in offers unopened.

It is also advised to limit information placed on social networking sites like Facebook, twitter or the university directory since they can often be accessed by anyone who knows how to look. Another advice to take into consideration is to make sure that you don’t share your pin codes and passwords to anyone, even those you consider friends.

Restoring credit and correcting information can be quite a tedious process and most college students really don’t have time to deal with it, so it is best to gain protection from the onset instead of having to go through the arduous task of fixing