December 5, 2025
Identity theft happens when someone uses your personal or financial information without your permission. With just a few details such as your name and address, social security number, or usernames and passwords, scammers can open credit cards, access bank accounts, claim government benefits, steal your tax refund, or even use your health insurance.
The good news: Most scammers look for the easiest target. A few simple habits can make you a far tougher target for fraudsters.
Check your credit reports regularly: Go to www.annualcreditreport.com and check for accounts that you don’t recognize. Free weekly online credit reports are available from each of the reporting bureaus (Experian, Transunion and Equifax).
Healthy Habit:• Freeze your credit (and your minor child’s). A credit freeze is free, takes minutes, and blocks new accounts from being opened in your name. You can lift it temporarily anytime you need to apply for credit.
Safeguard your mail: Scammers will steal mail to access financial statements, checks and new credit cards. They will use this information to rack up charges and even open new accounts you never know of, until it is too late.
Healthy Habits:• Switch to eStatements and use electronic bill pay or other online payment methods rather than paper checks.
• Drop outgoing mail inside the post office rather than using the blue collection box or your home mailbox.
• Sign up for delivery notifications through the United States Postal Service so you know when sensitive mail is on the way, and so scammers can’t register for these alerts in your place.
• Shred any documents that contain financial or personal information before you discard it.
Protect your online presence: Scammers will monitor your social media for years, pulling bits of information that may seem trivial but over time may allow them to build a file on you. For example: Do you use your pet’s name, car model or mother’s maiden name as a password verification hint? Now think about how easy it is to monitor your online presence to learn those answers.
Healthy Habits:• Do not click or open unexpected links or attachments, even if they look like they’re from someone you know.
• Avoid using public Wi-Fi for any site you log into i.e., banking, online shopping, etc.
• Do not accept friend requests unless you are certain of whom it is.
• Avoid those “quizzes” on social media that ask a few questions to “learn” what character of a favorite show you are, as they often ask questions that are commonly used as password hints or verification questions.
• If using peer-to-peer (P2P) payment apps, privatize your transactions. Limit P2P use to send money to someone you know – for example, to reimburse a friend for your half of the dinner bill.
• If you receive an unusual request from someone you know online, by email or text message, such as requests for personal information, to log in to your banking or other online account, or a change in payment instructions (e.g. to pay an invoice in a new way), call the sender directly using a phone number you have in your contact information to confirm the request is legitimate.
• Do not give your username and password to anyone, ever. Bad actors spoof well-known companies like your bank, utility company or credit card company and ask for your username and password to “authenticate” you – really, they are stealing that information to impersonate you to log into your accounts with those companies.
Keep your devices up to date: Outdated phones and computers are prime targets because they lack the latest security protections.
Healthy Habits:• Install recommended updates and patches for your devices and operating systems promptly.
• Use reputable antivirus software and firewalls and enable automatic updates.
• Choose strong, unique passwords for each account.
• Turn on two-factor authentication or use fingerprint/face ID.
• Add a PIN to your mobile phone account to prevent SIM-swap fraud.
If you think you’re a victim of fraud or identity theft
Act quickly:
Call the company where fraud occurred and ask them to freeze or lock your account. They may be able to recover some or all of the lost funds.
Report identity theft and start a recovery plan at www.identitytheft.gov.
