Sure, you know that you are authorized to check your credit report whenever you want, once a year from each of the credit bureaus for free. However, you may not be sure of who else can check your credit report. Is it possible that anyone can check your credit, even without your permission?

Getting your credit report checked by companies you are doing business with is not unusual. In fact, when you are applying for a loan to buy a car, a house, or anything else, they check your credit. When you apply for a credit card, they check your credit score.

But who, out of all these people that check your credit, is authorized to do without your permission, and who is not? Most everybody that has a legitimate business need to check your credit can do so without obtaining written, or even verbal consent. However, most of these companies will ask for your permission first, though it is not required.

Employers

One person who is required to get your consent is your employer. This applies for potential employers also. If you are applying for a job, or have a job, they need your permission, though it does not always have to be written, to pull your credit. If you give them permission once, they generally do not have to ask for it again if they want to check your credit in the future.

Tip:

Many people do not keep track of their credit report as well as they should. When you are applying for a job or for credit, it is ideal that know exactly what the lender or potential employer is looking at when they check your report. It is crucial to know what is on your credit report because there could be mistakes, in which case you should immediately send a dispute letter conserning such to the credit bureaus so that you can get it eliminated.

Also, if you never checked your credit report, you could not repair the damage done by identity theft. Sure, your credit card company may let you know that you have maxed out on your credit card, you may convince them that it wasn’t you, and you may close that account to prevent further misunderstanding. However, it will still show on your credit report that you went over your credit limit, unless you check your report and dispute that mistake.

Some government agencies have limits on what they can see of your credit history. Things like your name, address, former address, and current and former employers are the only things that some companies are allowed to see. The rights you have concerning what companies can see of your credit history are protected under the FCRA, or the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

You have certain right when it comes to your credit privacy. It is sometimes difficult to know whether those rights are being protected or not. Knowing who needs permission to pull your credit and who does not will help you to keep your credit report safe from potential fraud.

Credit card fraud has escalated to an alarming rate over the past few years. According to Master Card credit card fraud has increased by 369 percent since 1995. It is one of the more difficult frauds to combat and since there is no face to face interact or voice to voice interaction over the internet it is one of the more used forms of fraud, giving the criminals a greater sense of comfort.

There is more then one way that a card can be used fraudulently on your internet website. It could be a child stealing a parent’s credit card, a lost or stolen credit card that has not yet been reported, or even the more prominent identity theft scam, where a card has been issued under someone else identity and information.

You have to be able to protect yourself and your business from this fraud, because the credit card companies will hold you the merchant fully responsible for the transaction. Which means you not only lost your physical product, but the cost of your product and in some cases finds an additional $50 charge back fee. You can even be black listed from your merchant account if you have too many charge backs.

So what is it that we can do about on line credit card fraud? There is a few ways that you can check if the person is a real card holder. First you can verify the customers billing address. This can be done automatically by the AVS System or known as Address Verification System. This will be able to check that the billing address matches the information the company has with the card. But this only works for address within the United States.

Another problem with verifying the billing address is that the internet allows us to purchase products electronically and not just purchased electronically but also delivered electronically for example movies, software, music, e-books, and ect. Another thing that you will have to watch out for when verifying the address is that the AVS System provides no protection at all if the thief obtains a valid address that goes along with the stolen credit card.

The next way that you can check if it is a real card holder is to be careful of purchases from a free email address. The purpose behind them getting a free email address is that they are hard and sometimes impossible to trace. If the customer has a paid email address another good thing to do is to check their website. All you have to do for this is to put a www. In front of the last part of the email address for example if someone has an email address that is joe@mywebsite.com just put in www.mywebsite.com and check if the contact information on the website matches the information on the billing address.

Another thing you can do is tell your visitors of all of you anti-fraud systems that you have in place even if you don’t have any in place. This will deter most thieves just by warning. It is the same concept of somebody putting a home security system signs in their lawn and not having a security system hooked up. There is no way for the thief to tell if they are in place or not. They prefer easier targets. Lastly beware of international orders. Orders from the Middle East, Egypt, and some African states have some of the highest fraudulent rates.

Identity theft is becoming a growing problem in the world of credit cards and bank accounts today. Even with all the security we are given by precautions that the credit card companies and department stores take, identity thieves have learned to adapt to it and work around it so that they can still make a mess of your finances. You can never have enough protection against identity theft in the world today.

So how do you improve the security you are being guarded by against identity theft? What are some extra precautions that you yourself can make to insure that you are doing what is necessary to keep strangers from making purchases on your credit card? Here is a suggestion that is becoming more and more popular in the updated world of credit card security:

Don’t Sign Your Card

Your credit card has a little strip on the back of it where you normally sign your name. When you make purchases, this verifies that you are actually the person whose name is posted on the credit card, and that the particular signature matches the one you give when you make the purchase. However, many signatures can easily be copied by someone who has gotten a hold of your credit card. How is the person making the transaction supposed to know whether or not the person signing the receipt or the digital touch pad is the same person who signed the back of the credit card or not?

Instead of using your signature on the back of your credit card, which anyone could easily get a hold of and forge, many people are updating their security against identity theft by writing, “Please Check ID”. By doing this, they allow for the cashier to verify that the person signing the receipt is the person who actually owns the credit card even better. This is because they can identify not only your signature on something like your driver’s license, but they can also match your photo to the face standing in front of them.

There are few times when people have run into problems with this procedure. The only thing it will really cost you is a few more seconds for the clerk to check your ID. Still, would this not be considered a good trade of for a little extra protection against identity theft?

However, cashiers will often not even check the back of the credit card to verify a signature. Sometimes they will not even ask for your ID. In cases like these, it is the poor conduct of the marketing system that can increase your chances of getting strange and unaccountable charges racked up on your credit card.

If Your Card is Stolen…

1. Immediately call the credit card company. As soon as you find out that your credit card has been stolen, call your lender and get a balance transfer as soon as possible.

2. Contact the police. File a report immediately. It’s good to document what action you took after your card was stolen, also.

The last thing you need right now is to find out that your identity has been stolen, and the person that has stolen it has taken out a huge loan in your name. This leaves you responsible not only for finding out who stole your identity and preventing further action on your credit ability, but for paying off the loan that isn’t even yours to begin with in the mean time until someone does figure out who did it.

There are a few things too look for when you think that maybe your identity has been stolen and faulty action has been taken with your credit. Many people can go for months without even realizing that they have been a victim of fraud. However, if you monitor your credit carefully by looking for these warnings, you can catch the identity thief more quickly, or avoid it altogether.

1. Credit card or loan statements will reveal transactions, most likely withdrawals, that you did not make. Criminals will spend money on your credit card or take out a loan in your name that you had absolutely nothing to do with. Watch your mail carefully and be sure to not miss any clues that give you reason to believe that someone else is using your identity to get credit.

2. People may call you from credit card companies or lending agencies to verify information or to tell you that you were approved for a loan that you did not apply for. This is one way that you can easily find out if your personal information has been stolen, and one way it can be easily solved if you simply cancel the application and get someone to help you get rid of this identity theft problem.

It is best to catch it in early stages like this, but many people let it slip by, or simply do not get such a lucky break.
There are several ways in which you can prevent identity theft. Stopping it before it even starts is always the first option. Here are some of the things you can do to keep your identity safe:

1. Keep an eye on your statements

Monitoring your statements and your credit accounts will keep you updated on their activity. It will help if you know what transactions you have made better, so that you can identify things that do not belong more quickly. Frequent monitoring will help you to detect fraud faster.

2. Check your report

Checking your credit report frequently can help you to know if someone has obtained a loan using your identity, or if they have committed any other identity theft related crime. If someone has taken out a loan in your name and has left you to pay it off when you have no idea it even exists, your credit report will be full of marks against you and your credit score will plummet. This will help you if a statement for a loan that was not taken out in your name, obviously, is not sent directly to you.