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Most of us carry medical insurance to cover unforeseen problems, as long as we can afford it. Our insurance means we have a unique medical identity, including our health histories, personal information, bills paid, what we pay for insurance and what our account will pay for. This can be a real problem if someone decides to steal that medical identity.
It’s a fact – someone else who gets your insurance number and personal information can use them to pay for their own medical expenses. This includes drugs, surgery, expensive treatments and more. Medical records and information may be falsified and new ones created. If the thief gets away with this, you could end up being charged for what your insurance won’t pay, or discover that your legitimate problems aren’t covered anymore. You’ve become a victim of medical identity theft without even knowing it.
It can be extremely difficult to prove that your identity has been stolen in this way, however. After all, the information and records are on computers in hospitals and insurance agencies all over. Sometimes, people even get the help of a doctor or other medical professional to commit this kind of fraud. That’s why it’s so important to be ready for it.
The Possible Consequences
The biggest impact of medical identity theft is financial. Victims of this kind of theft have credit problems, may have to deal with debt collectors, and might have trouble getting a job. They may also have trouble dealing with the fake entries in their medical identity. After all, if a new insurer believes you’ve had treatment for an illness you haven’t had, they may consider it to be a pre-existing condition. Even if you check your credit report on a regular basis, it may be hard to see the problem.
What Can You Do
Recovering your medical identity under current law is difficult. Since medical records are secret, it can take a long time to find out what happened. Ideally, you should select an insurance company that has transparency of records (to you) and regularly updates credit reports. There are also a number of websites you can check to find out other possible actions.
Most of the time, people who suffer from this kind of theft have a hard time recovering. Since they don’t have the right to change their own medical files, and since information is hard to get to, it may never be fixed. This is why anyone with medical insurance should make sure their credit information and all other data from the insurance company is correct. Lionheart Assurance Solutions recommends that you keep track of your paid bills and keep a close eye on your personal data to reduce your chances of becoming a victim.
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With the growing popularity of the internet, the cases of identity fraud have increased tremendously in recent years. Information about people is readily available through the net, which makes it easy for scammers to exploit anyone’s financial and social information. Research has shown that single renters and young professionals are at the highest risk. They tend to be more open to meeting new people online and sharing contact information. Some may be honestly looking for roommates or sublet tenants when it becomes difficult to pay their rent on their own. Those who make purchases or sell goods online are also at higher risk, especially those who use auction sites where cheating and scamming are common.
This is an increasing problem everyone wants protection from, but you first have to learn why it takes place so frequently. If you think identity theft is enabled entirely by the websites you visit, you are wrong. In reality, identity theft usually happens as a result of small mistakes made by the victim, either unknowingly or as a result of carelessness.
For instance, you have to be very careful when paying with credit or debit cards on a shopping trip since these cards can be manipulated or stolen in the process of an ordinary transaction. Even as late as 2006, many stores were still printing entire credit card numbers on standard invoices and receipts. This is valuable information for scammers who know how to use credit card numbers to their advantage. Old fashioned carbon machines that were previously used to create copies cards that would later be processed was very dangerous because anyone could have easily picked up those credit card numbers and used them.
Today, standard practice has changed so most stores only provide the last 4 digits of each card number. This is much safer, but there is still room for improvement. Always shred your receipts and invoices and never leave them inside shopping bags, even if they are with your purchased items. You don’t even want to throw them away in public trash cans…or your home trash cans for that matter! Shredding them is the safest way to protect yourself.
Lionheart Assurance Solutions recommends that you try to shop with cash whenever possible, for a very simple reason. Cash cannot be duplicated as credit and debit cards can. Of course, you also have to protect yourself if you use ATM machines to withdraw large sums of cash for shopping trips. Be mindful of how close other people are standing while you use the machine and do not allow them to stand directly beside you. Always be careful of suspicious looking people as they may be trying to acquire your pin number.
Some scammers even use mobile phones with video capability held at just the right angle to record your hand movements, which can later be used to determine your pin number. Other scammers use high-tech gadgets that copy card numbers from the magnetic strips on the back of all credit and debit cards. This is why credit identity theft is the most common variety of identity theft. It is up to you to safeguard yourself against this crime.
Even your personal living space such as your car or home must be secured with extra measures. The good news is you can protect yourself in all instances. Remain on guard even when in your home and vehicle. You don’t want to lose valuable personal information if someone manages to break into your home or vehicle as it can cause a lot more long term damage than losing cash, jewels and other high dollar belongings.
Realize that today, your personal details and all information pertaining to bank accounts and security numbers is more valuable to a thief than your music systems and large sums of cash sitting around. So, make sure that you keep all important documents with any variety of personal information in a secure location. Identity theft has very severe consequences in the future, so be careful and protect yourself!
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Hacking is a huge problem online today. It’s all too common for users of social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook to find at some point that their accounts have been compromised or their passwords changed without authorization. Owners of these social networking sites now consider security their primary concern since they are under immense pressure to offer safe features to their users. Users want features which keep them safe from hackers.
Most social networking sites do not have adequate security in place and do not use SSL. This makes each session ID used by all users available on proxy. That is the information hackers use to break into accounts. In one recent example, Twitter was hacked due to administration failure. It is also well known that YouTube hackers from around the world use cross-scripting failure to enter invalid or virus-infected information to interfere with the system and hack into accounts. This is done to obtain personal data illegally.
It’s quite clear you are extremely vulnerable to Identity Theft every time you use these social networking sites. Too often, users from all around the globe have unlimited blind faith when it comes to friends on these networking sites. Many users will even share personal information through one of these sites at some point. A survey revealed that one in three users have at least three pieces of personal information posted on their accounts. This information is often their name, postal address, or phone number. A professional hacker can take these bits of information and steal your identity through the internet. It can harm you considerably offline as well!
Let’s look at some precautions you can take to use Social Networking sites safely. This will reduce your risk of becoming a victim of Identity Theft:
Never trust someone you don’t know in real life as your online friend because they could just as well be scammers looking to take advantage of your trust. Never share any type of personal information with someone you have not met or seen in person.
Lionheart Assurance Solutions recommends that you reject all unknown friend requests or requests from any person who claims to be a friend of a friend. Check with the real life friend to ensure they actually know the person in real life first.
Never display any personal information online, no matter what the circumstances may be. Do not share your street address, phone number, relative names or bank account numbers through any type of website. Remember hackers are constantly watching for such information to take steal your identity.
Most social networking sites provide personal security settings on all accounts, but most users do not realize they are even there. Always use available features, especially locking your account and all photographs so that only your invited friends have access.
Security Freeze: search for the words “credit freeze” or “security freeze” on any search engine and learn how to set this up for yourself. These programs lock your credit and prevent others from opening accounts of any type under your name. This instantly stops hackers from using any information found online.
Account Monitoring: monitor your credit and bank accounts so you can catch it early if someone does make use of your identity.
Identity Recovery Assistance: if you fear your identity has been compromised, you must report it immediately to the authorities. Quick action can limit the damages long term.
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Would you be upset for getting a parking ticket when you hadn’t done the parking – when you’d been at home all the time? Or how about going to the hospital and discovering that your health insurance has been canceled? People who’ve been victims of identity theft run into these kinds of problems all the time. If you’ve been under the impression that having your identity stolen can’t hurt you, you’d be wrong. Identity theft can have some really terrible side effects.
So, what different types of identity theft are there, and which ones do you need to be concerned about. Let’s take a look at some of the different ways someone can steal your identity.
Character identity theft – This is one of the more serious types. Character identity theft could cause you to be charged with crimes you never committed.
Theft of your social security number – Someone who steals your social security number can get all kinds of private information on you. They have access to your bank statements, old tax forms, private records and more. They can take out new accounts in your name, and it’s hard to trace, since the thief has your identification.
Drivers’ license theft – When the thief gets a valid copy of your drivers’ license. If this person commits a driving offense while they have your license, you could end up with points on your license. You could also end up paying for auto insurance you never bought, or find your premiums rising because a thief was in an accident.
Medical identity theft – If someone else has used your identity at a hospital or medical facility, you could find that you’re denied insurance coverage. You could be charged hospital and medical bills that you aren’t responsible, and have to pay for treatments and medications you never received.
Credit theft – The type of identity theft most people are aware of, credit theft often happens when a thief gets into your bank account or borrows under your name. This can leave you in serious financial straits. A thief can apply for big loans, new credit cards, and all kinds of other types of credit, ruining your record and causing real problems when you buy a home or a car.
Now that you know what kinds of problems you can face from identity theft, you also know to be careful. Lionheart Assurance Solutions recommends that you keep track of your belongings, never trust anyone with your personal information, and be very careful of online frauds that try to harvest your numbers for someone else’s use. If you believe your identity has been stolen, act fast. Report the fact to the authorities, get in touch with your creditors and the credit reporting bureaus, and have your credit rating frozen. Get new copies of all your forms of ID and credit cards, and have the old ones invalidated. It’s the best way to take action against a thief.
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The immensely popular online classified ad site Craigslist is known in much of the world as a great place to look for a job, an apartment, to meet people and of course, to buy, sell or give away all manner of things. By and large, users appreciate the site’s no-frills approach and the ease with which Craigslist facilitates small to medium sized business transactions between individuals and for the most part, people feel positive about their experiences with the site (full disclosure: I’m writing this while sitting at a desk I found on Craigslist, in a chair which was also found through the site).
However, there are always a few bad apples somewhere in the barrel, especially when you have a barrel as large as one represented by the enormous user base of this site. Lionheart Assurance Solutions recommends that users need to keep an eye out for scams, but thankfully, there are a few easy ways to spot all but the most sophisticated Craigslist scams.
1) As the site itself suggests, try to avoid making non-local transactions via the site. You may run across ads posted by people from (or purporting to be from) other countries or on the other side of your own country. These are best avoided – there are plenty of other people in your own city who you can deal with face to face.
2) Remember the old saw that if it sounds too good to be true, it is. If you see a posting offering far more than seems to make sense given the price they’re asking, you’re very likely looking at some sort of a scam.
3) Watch out for poorly written posts, especially those claiming to be for a business. While not everyone is a skilled writer, you can generally assume that if someone’s trying to sell something, they’ll take the time to proofread their post. Be very suspicious of posts which are rife with spelling or grammatical errors.
4) This is such an elementary rule that it seems hardly worth mentioning, but you should never (never!) give out any personal information when dealing with people over Craigslist such as bank or credit card account numbers or your social security number. Divulging this kind of sensitive information is practically asking to become a victim of identity theft.
Craigslist is a great place to buy or sell just about anything you could want or to advertise your business; but when you do business through this popular classified ad site, always be careful and keep the safety of your personal information in mind.
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Lionheart Assurance Presents Today’s Topic
Important questions business owners should ask themselves to maximize efficiency and bottom line profitability
Question #1
Do your employees face personal problems like…
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Home foreclosures?
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Bankruptcy?
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Or creditor harassment calls?
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How about divorce?
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Or child custody issues?
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Do they ever receive traffic tickets?
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Or been victims of identity theft?
Any of these things happen to your employees? sure they do.
Now here’s Question #2
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Do your employees’ personal problems effect your business? Do they effect employee absenteeism? How about employee productivity?
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What about accidents? Can the distraction of personal problems make them more likely?
It’s no mystery that employee’s personal problems can effect your bottom line.
That’s why Lionheart Assurance Solutions offers cutting edge employee legal plan benefits designed to help employees keep their minds off their personal problems and ON their jobs. Over 30,000 North American companies of all sizes have added these unique plans to their employee benefits package, and they’ve become some of the most requested employee benefits today.
Not only can an employee legal plan help boost your company’s profits; it may also help to:
At no direct cost to your company, your employees can have access to high quality legal counsel and professional advice that allows them to stay focused on their work and not on personal problems.
And with no obligation on your part, your Lionheart Assurance Solutions professional can show you why over one million families across North America have access to quality legal plan benefits for about the cost of a cup of coffee a day.
That’s why Lionheart Assurance is peace of mind.
For more information, contact your Lionheart Assurance Solutions Agent at (888) 795-1563 or visit www.LionheartAssurance.com.
Disclaimer: Plan availability and coverage varies by state or province. The information contained in this material is for illustrative purposes only and is not a contract. Please remember that only the plan contract can give actual terms, coverage, amounts, conditions and exclusions.
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The spam that normally fills your inbox can also be highly dangerous for your identity. You may simply discard spam emails from your inbox, but what about the innumerable emails you come across that appear to be from popular social site or shopping platform like eBay and PayPal? If you have an account at either one of these sites or one that is similar, then you must be extremely careful about emails your receive. With identity theft on the rise, it has become essential to know how to protect yourself from fake email scams if you want to keep your finances safe.
Fake messages sent to you by scammers are for the sole purpose of phishing your private information and they are meant to cheat you, both financially and socially. The best thing to do is to automatically delete email messages that appear to be from PayPal and eBay unless you are expecting something from them or if your full name on the specific account is not in the salutation of the email. Even then, read the email thoroughly and do not reply immediately unless you are absolutely sure the email is legitimate.
Another safeguard to ensure the emails you receive are authenticated by DKIM or Domain Keys Identified Mail. You can enable the feature from within your mail settings. Check with your software provider. This program only authenticates emails from eBay and PayPal.
There are various social networking sites that have their own authentication process. If you are using social networking sites make sure that you are aware of the security and privacy measure for each of these sites you interact with.
Oftentimes, scammers send adware and spyware along with their scam emails so be very careful before you open any suspicious email messages or from an unknown source. If you are a person who does a lot of online transactions you need to be careful about your email. In most cases, your account is hacked by the means of spyware that is sent via spam or suspicious emails.
It is always advisable not to tell anyone about the login id as well as the password for your PayPal or eBay accounts. This information can reach those cyber criminals who are very difficult to trace.
Also, keep in mind that although sites like Google have their own anti-spam firewalls in place, it is not always easy to prevent unwanted spam from popping up in your Inbox. The success rate for anti-spam measures is never 100 percent. Anti-spam software tools are automatically configured in most cases. They are designed to look for probable signs of ‘bad’ emails and block them or warn you against them. But, the problem is most of these ‘bad’ emails are coded and designed to look authentic and clean. It is impossible for any automatic software to stop them all.
With the advancement of technology an increasing number of scammers are finding out newer ways to cheat the gullible people who fall into their lucrative traps.
The whole process of buying and selling over the Net happens electronically with soft cash. For example, if you buy something over a shopping site the exact price of the article will be taken out of your account and placed in the account of the seller. You do not have to worry about the transfer process as everything happens automatically. But, just think how dangerous this process can be if a scammer gets hold of your account number and secret code because you were not more vigilant!
The greatest disadvantage is that most of the time the person who is cheated does not know this for sure and often there is a significant time gap before he realizes it. This often allows the fraud to escape scot free.
In today’s times PayPal scams are being increasingly common. So keep in mind the old adage- better safe than sorry- and act accordingly! Learn more about preventing Paypal Scams at the Lionheart Assurance Solutions.
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