Avoid Identity Theft in Several Simple Steps

The Better Business Bureau and the FCC are warning consumers about phone calls from phony debt collectors. In the past couple of months, there has been an outbreak of fraudulent calls from phony debt collectors attempting to solicit private information for the purposes of identity theft.

According to the Better Business Bureau, the scammers say they are with the “Financial Accountability Association” or the “Federal Legislation of Unsecured Loans” and are equipped with a disconcerting amount of personal information about their potential victims.

The Better Business Bureau has issued a National alert and believes that there may have been a massive breach in customer information which has armed these scammers with personal information. These breaches occur when corporations fail to adequately protect consumer information, it gets released to the internet, and now millions of scammers have access to millions of American’s personal information such as bank account numbers and social security numbers.

Do not give out any banking information or other personal information. This may seem obvious to many, but you would be surprised how convincing some of these callers can be. For instance many callers claim to be your bank and can easily sound like they are legitimate when in fact they are not.

The Better Business Bureau recommends that you demand they prove the legitimacy of the debt they are collecting by US postal mail.

We also suggest that you do a simple EveryCall.us search of the telephone number that shows up on the caller ID to find out whose calling you before you continue your discussion with any caller you don’t recognize. Ask to call them back, hang up and search the telephone number. Often times there will be reports from other consumers about who is calling that can help you avoid becoming a victim of identity theft.

Did you get a call from a telemarketer or some other spam caller? Then be sure to find out who calls you at EveryCall.us, a free service to lookup unknown callers and report telemarketers. Blackberry owners can download Call Control, the best blacklist application for Blackberry to block telemarketers quickly and easily.

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