Lionheart Assurance Solutions Sees Scams Rising

Lionheart Assurance Solutions has noted a rise in the number of scams related to stolen personal information over the past 5-7 years. The company is bringing today’s most advanced identity theft coverage to the masses through a unique identity theft benefits package. These benefit packages are offered to employees of a client company.

Empowering Employees To Monitor Personal Information And Fight Back Against Identity Theft

The unique benefits package allows employees to fight back against the possibility of identity theft. The benefits are paid for through payroll deduction. Those who enroll in the Lionheart Assurance Solutions employee benefits package to reduce the incidence of identity theft can stay alert to their credit for unusual activity indicative of a stolen identity. The around the clock credit monitoring gives them peace of mind. Moreover, in the event that a fraudulent scam or ripoff artist compromises an individual’s personal information, they can take immediate steps through legal counsel and through the assistance of a Licensed Fraud Investigator offered directly through the identity theft restoration service, who will work tirelessly and on the behalf of a person who has been compromised.

The Detailed Benefits Of The Unique Package

The Lionheart Assurance Solutions identity theft coverage is available to individual employees, offering them individualized benefits. The coverage creates a mechanism for employees. It is not the company that gets the coverage, but the employees themselves. This is an optional enrollment program made available by the company. Those who choose to participate can keep an eye on their credit history because scam artists likely to use the stolen personal information to open up a credit card under the new identity. In the event of identity theft, participants, as part of their membership, can also talk to a lawyer and obtain the services of a Licensed Fraud Investigator who will provide full service identity theft restoration.

The Lionheart Assurance Solutions Senior Management Training Team

The unique benefits package is a result of the ideas put together by the senior management team at Lionheart Assurance Solutions. This team has the combined business experience of more than a century. Some members of the Lionheart Assurance Solutions team have senior executive leadership experience in some of the nation’s largest and most prestigious companies.

Visit Lionheart Assurance Solutions website for more information.

Lionheart Assurance Solutions

Lionheart Assurance Solutions works with companies to assist in mitigating risks associated with identity theft and to offer employee benefits that can lead to improvements in employee productivity and reductions in lost work time. The nationwide team of consultants first begins by identifying potential areas of need related to how the client company operates their business. One of the things that they often find necessary to discuss with the CEO of the company is the need to protect personal sensitive data. Unless a company has information security checks in place when employees are handling sensitive personal data like social security numbers, the company could be at risk. The possibility exists for data breaches leading to identity theft and potential investigations related to compromised confidential information.

Noting the rise in this type of information leak, Lionheart Assurance Solutions utilizes a two-fold program related to identity theft:

One part of the program is creating a mechanism for employees to have personal identity theft restoration coverage. Through payroll deduction benefits, an employee can purchase round the clock credit monitoring, access to legal counsel, and identity restoration. This gives the employee peace of mind in the event that identity theft does occur.

Another part of the program is assisting in the formation of an ongoing initiative for employers to safeguard employee and customer personal information in the workplace. For example, if someone in human resources were to leave employee files with sensitive information on the desk and leave the room for lunch, anyone entering the office could gain access to that information. Similarly, leaving computer programs unguarded, with no password protection, or leaving file cabinet unlocked, are all ways that sensitive personal data could get in the wrong hands. Careless handling of receipts and log books are other ways personal information can be stolen. By helping a company identify various ways that personal sensitive data is not secured, Lionheart Assurance Solutions provides valuable assistance designed to reduce the likelihood that a company would be found lacking in information security.

Lionheart Assurance Solutions conducts a variety of trainings to raise employee awareness about the many ways identity theft can occur. These training sessions provide an important education for employees and help to safeguard the company itself. The sessions are designed to make those employees who have access to personal information more aware of how to protect that information. With such awareness training and access to innovative employee benefits, employees can get the best coverage available while employers implement the best practices to keep sensitive information confidential.

These identity theft programs are tailored for each company to meet their unique needs and implemented at no direct cost to the client company.

Lionheart Assurance Solutions, LP, with an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau, has provided employee identity theft solutions and legal coverage to businesses of every size since 1997. Now even small businesses can afford the kind of identity theft and legal restoration coverage typically seen in large corporations. Led by a senior management team with over a century of combined experience, Lionheart Assurance Solutions customizes identity theft awareness training and legal and identity theft restoration plans to meet the individual needs and budgets of each client. The training that Lionheart Assurance Solutions provides revolutionizes the way employees approach everyday security practices, greatly decreasing an employer’s chance of a data breach. Another benefit is access to legal counsel, which will help businesses to prevent, or mitigate the effects of, investigations or law suits. Employers, and their employees and customers, can take heart in the secure work environment fostered by the identity theft and legal coverage at Lionheart Solutions.

Identity theft is a growing problem, and it comes in many forms. Every day, criminals and fraudsters use the credit card information, social security numbers, employment or medical histories, and even character references of unsuspecting victims for their own nefarious purposes. Identity theft can be as simple as fraudulent credit card purchases, or using someone else’s name and identity to get a job or a loan. It can be as complicated as social engineering the victim’s friends and associates to obtain “secure” passwords or other secrets appropriate only for the business environment.

The best way to stop identity theft, in all its forms, is to prevent it in the first place. Through awareness training at Lionheart Assurance Solutions, LP, workers will learn how to spot all kinds of scams, secure their data and passwords, and protect their privacy. If identity theft does strike, they will learn how to clear their names—all covered by the included benefits, and not done using company time or expenses.

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!

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.

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.