New Study: Florida Residents are the Third Most Vulnerable to Identity Theft and Fraud
Recently, WalletHub released its annual report on identity theft and fraud across the country. The report rates consumer vulnerability to identity theft and other types of consumer fraud in each of the 50 states and in the District of Columbia. Once again, Florida did not perform well in the rankings. This year, Florida came in as the third worst state for identity theft and fraud. WalletHub found that only California and D.C. rank worse than the Sunshine State. Consumer fraud can cause tremendous financial damage to the victims. If you have been the victim of fraud in South Florida, you need to take action. Please contact an experienced West Palm Beach consumer fraud attorney today to discuss your legal options.
Three Tips that Can Help Protect You from Identity Theft and Consumer Fraud
- Safeguard Your Information
Consumers often become victims of fraud because their personal information fell into the wrong hands. You need to do everything in your power to protect your information. Certainly, this starts with safeguarding key things such as your:
- Social Security number;
- Debit card pin; and
- Credit card numbers.
You should never give these numbers out to unknown entities or untrusted websites. Additionally, you also need to protect other information. For example, your internet passwords must be kept private. You should use multiple different complex passwords for your different accounts. If you use the same password for each web account, a single data breach could put your all of your accounts at risk. When available, it is best to enable multi-factor authentication on all internet accounts.
- Sign Up for Credit Monitoring
It is a best practice to set up a credit monitoring system. This will let you know if any major changes have occurred on your credit record. In fact, you will get an alert whenever a new account is opened under your name or when a company had pulled your credit records. In the unfortunate event that a fraudster gets your information, credit monitoring will give you immediate notice. This will give you the information need to take immediate action. The quicker you take action, the more likely you will be able to recover all of your financial losses.
- Be Skeptical of Offers that Seem too Good to Be True
Finally, please be highly skeptical of any offers that seem too good to be true. Fraudsters use a wide variety of ever-changing tactics to pull off their scams. There is no way to know which scam will become big next year. However, one variable that almost all of these scams have in common is that they draw in unsuspected victims with extremely enticing offers. You must keep your guard up at all times.
Contact Our Office Today
At Pike & Lustig, LLP, we have extensive experience protecting the rights of consumer fraud victims. To learn more about what we can do in your case, please do not hesitate to get in touch with our attorneys today. We represent businesses and consumers throughout the region, including in Fort Lauderdale, Miami and Boca Raton.
Resource:
wallethub.com/edu/states-where-identity-theft-and-fraud-are-worst/17549/#methodology
