Protecting yourself from credit card and identity theft

A large number of people is victim to identity theft every year. Such incident occurs if somebody uses your social security number to obtain a credit card in your name to use it and never pay off the debt.

If this occurs, the victim's credit report reflects the failure to pay and the victim may not be able to borrow money because of their damaged credit. Identity theft is a problem because it takes a long period of time to get the fraudulent information removed from your credit records at credit agencies.

One way to protect youself is to review your credit report on a frequent basis to see if there are any suspicious records such as a credit card you may not have applied for. There are also services that you can use to help you dispute and remove errors from your credit report, if necessary.