The Real Face of an Identity Thief on the Internet

Identity thieves will never come before you, but you can find them wearing attractive masks. If you apply a bit of caution, you will be able to see the danger ahead.

During your normal routine, you will come in contact with many people. Some of them will be your real acquaintances but some will be trying for an opportunity to extract information from you. Let us see who they are and how they catch you.

1. Pretending as your lover - Some of them will be lurking on the social networking sites. They will pose themselves properly to catch their prey. They will show you a very attractive profile and a good looking photo. You may be surprised to receive some gifts from such unknown friend. These gifts might be sent using a stolen credit card! Once such relationship is established, they will request you for help. Sometimes they will ask money for paying medical expenses; sometimes for paying some business debt. They can also offer you a share in their business in return. There is no such business and all these moves end up in paying huge money to these thieves.

Another danger in this relationship is taking out some strategic information from you, like name of your pet or name of your parents which may be used to answer the security question to get access to your e-mail account. Once the email is accessed, everything including your credit cards and your bank accounts are at the big risk.

While somebody is showing interest in you, it is up to you to decide whether to go forward or not. If you decide to go for it, never disclose any clues about you in your conversation. Most of such relationships end only in frustration.

2. Posing as your friend - Some thieves will be searching around the sights like MySpace or Facebook and they will contact you are claiming as your old classmates. Many people will accept them as friends without much thought. Then they will have friendly conversations with you in which they will try to take out personal information from you. Before you understand what's happening, they will have enough information to reset the password for accessing your e-mail address.

Never become online friends with people to whom you don't remember as your friends in the past. You can declined politely their proposal and terminate the relationship.

3. Posing as your banker - Some of them may send you fake e-mails which will be in the name of your bank asking for verification of your details. You may think that the e-mails are from your bank because the ID they will be use for this purpose will be deceptive. The email may claim that there is something wrong with your account and you have to login to your account and re-enter your information. They may provide you an instant link to click in order to re-enter your information easily. Instead of verifying your details, the link will take out all the information from you, which will be used to empty your bank account.

Remember, your bank will never send you e-mails for the verifying the details.

4. Posing as your potential business partners - This is another trap set by identity thieves. You will receive an e-mail which will boast the sender with a brilliant business idea, but he is in need of capital. He may propose doing business jointly. Remember, such e-mail will be sent with the generic title of Dear Sir / Madam. So they don't know even your name! Generally the sender will tell you that he is from some country abroad and is looking for help from someone in the United States. Many people delete these e-mails without even reading the contents but is significant amount of people fall in this trap.

It is obvious that without knowing anything about such person, you can't even think of a business relationship.

You have to be watchful to avoid these online fraudsters. A small mistake on your part may prove very costly in your life.

You get restless and annoyed when you suspect that someone has accessed and misused your details. The financial pain which comes thereafter is unbearable. There are many identity thieves operating all over. You can find many of them on the Internet. How to avoid their trap? Chintamani Abhyankar provides a word of caution.

Chintamani Abhyankar, is an expert in the field of finance and taxation for last 25 years. He has written many books explaining inside secrets of the magic world of finance. His famous eBook Stop donating your money to IRS which is now running in its second edition, provides intricate knowledge and tips on personal finance.

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