When it comes to student loans, you need to take extra measures to protect yourself. Many companies advertise their services, offering to help with your federal student loans — they might even call you.
They may claim they can lower your monthly payments or apply for loan forgiveness in your name. Many of these companies are behind student loan scams and charge hefty fees. And they have access to your personal information. But you can do all of the things they promise on your own, like apply for an income-driven repayment plan or Public Service Loan Forgiveness.
If your information has been compromised, take action right away to minimize the impact on your credit and your finances. Advertiser Disclosure. Dispute the account If you find that someone has opened an account or taken out a loan in your name, you need to dispute the charges with each of the three credit bureaus. Place a fraud alert on your credit If you suspect your information has been compromised, placing a fraud alert on your credit report can make it harder for criminals to open new lines of credit in your name, including credit cards, personal loans , or student loans.
Create an identity theft report If someone is using your information to open a new account or take out loans in your name, submit an identity theft report with the Federal Trade Commision FTC. File a police report In most cases, submitting an identity theft alert with the FTC is enough. However, there are some cases where you should also file a police report with your local law enforcement agency: You know the culprit: If you know the identity of the person who stole your information, such as a friend or relative who submitted a loan application in your name, you should contact the police.
Creditors insist on a police report: The FTC identity theft report will be sufficient for most creditors. You have money questions. Bankrate has answers. Our experts have been helping you master your money for over four decades. Bankrate follows a strict editorial policy, so you can trust that our content is honest and accurate. The content created by our editorial staff is objective, factual, and not influenced by our advertisers. We are compensated in exchange for placement of sponsored products and, services, or by you clicking on certain links posted on our site.
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While we strive to provide a wide range offers, Bankrate does not include information about every financial or credit product or service. Identity thieves are eager to make you one of the nearly 9 million people in the U. Not everyone is at the same risk of becoming part of that statistic; some of us fall victim more easily, often because we put more of ourselves out there.
How you interact on social networks, use your mobile device and pay for things can make you more susceptible to identity theft. Do it for free at myBankrate. The whole idea behind social networking services such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn is to share information with the others in your network — friends, relatives, colleagues and so on. Just as dangerous is giving out other key bits of your identity that could make it easier for an identity thief to apply for a loan in your name or fool a customer service representative.
Posting personal information such as your date of birth or address puts you at increased risk, says Henry Bagdasarian, founder and president of the Identity Management Institute, an organization that promotes ID theft awareness. Remember cash? Many people have stopped using it and instead pay exclusively with debit and credit cards — a practice that could increase your chances of becoming a victim of identity thieves.
The schemer will call you on the telephone, and lead you to believe they are a business that requires this information. Most people tend to believe them, since they have their name, address, and telephone number. To prevent this, verify who you are speaking to. Ask for a call back number, and question why they need this information. Call the company. Ask for the legitimacy of the request. To find other identity theft resources visit our Resources web page. Man-in-the-Middle Attack This type of theft involves criminally intercepting communication between two parties and recording the information without the two parties ever knowing about it.
A common scenario consists of making an online search for the URL address of a company, such as a financial institution. All the information you enter on this website is rerouted to your financial institution and the information your financial institution sends you is re-routed to you.
The schemer is recording all the transactions that are taking place between you and the institution. You should protect yourself by making the habit of periodically checking your credit reports, which will help you discover whether anyone has stolen your identity to access your bank accounts. Become more diligent when you select to access a website off a web search. Make sure that the website address is legitimate by verifying the URL address in the web address bar located at the top of the page.
If something looks suspicious close the browser. Phishing Schemes These are the most common types of computer identity theft schemes. In these types of frauds, the thief tricks you into giving your personal identifying information.
These types of attacks occur through a number of different mediums including cell phone messages, Internet social networks, emails, text messages, and standard mail.
The following explain several common schemes that are used. Pharming This can happen when a hacker tampers with a website host file or domain name system so that URL address requests are rerouted to a fake or spoofed website created by the hacker to capture personal identifying information from victims.
The victim then thinks that they are on a trusted website, and are more willing to enter their personal information, such as credit card numbers, social security numbers, and addresses. The hacker then uses that information to commit identity theft.
Protect yourself from this type of theft by checking for the padlock symbol in the right-hand bottom of the website scroll bar if it is a merchant website. If it is an organization or an affiliation, contact the website administrator or the organization via phone or email to verify that such information is actually needed before entering in any information. In this instance, the schemer posses as an individual working for a legitimate organization such as a government agency, a financial institution, a payment services organization, or another well-known company.
The goal is to get you to disclose your personal identifying information. Always be suspicious when receiving any unsolicited telephone call. Use your telephone service caller ID function. Look up the company information on the Internet using the call-back number on the caller ID through a reverse telephone search. Call the organization back, but do not dial the number that appears on the caller ID function, instead look for the number from a phone book or the internet.
This way you prevent the schemer or someone else working with the schemer from lying to you by telling you that the company is legitimate. When you call the legitimate company, question them to verify if the request is legitimate. If it is a legitimate company, tell them you have been solicited and verify the legitimacy of the call. If the legitimate company tells you that the message is not legitimate, report the Vishing attack to the Internet Crime Complaint Center IC3 at www.
You can add yourself to the registry at www. The website is legitimately indexed into search engines such as yahoo or Google so that during the normal course of searching for products or services individuals can find these offers.
Once the individual access the website the user is given incentives and persuaded in such a way that the individual becomes susceptible to give up his or her personal identifying information to take advantage of the offer being given.
An example of this would be when you are purchasing a normally high priced item over the internet, such as a video game system, and you find a website that has a much lower price. You may be tempted to purchase this item at a lower price but you do not realize that you are accessing a fake website. Another example is a job website that may offer a higher salary than the same job by other companies in that industry. To protect yourself, before submitting any information or downloading any attachments, research the company.
If you have never heard of the company or the offer, contact competitors and question the legitimacy of what is being offered. If you are purchasing something, make sure the padlock is visible in the right hand corner of the website scrollbar. Another resource to verify if a website is legitimate is www. This website contains reviews of websites along with message boards for up to date phishing and identification scams going on.
SMiShing In this scheme, the identity thief sends spam text messages posing as a financial institution or other legitimate entity. The text message has a sense of urgency, and can scare you into thinking there is a serious emergency by leading you to believe you will suffer financial losses or fees if there is no response. This may lead you to disclose personal identifying information by clicking on the link that appears on the text message.
Do not dial back the unknown number, you would only be providing the spammer some of the information they need from you.
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