This type of scam can take on my variations.  It could be someone is offering to pay you for a service or to buy an item that you advertised for sale.  There may even be an offer that promises an “advance” on some sweepstakes that you have supposed to have won, or to pay for the first installment on the millions of dollars you are going to receive for agreeing to have money from a foreign country transferred into your bank account for safekeeping.

In most instances of fake check scams the one doing the scam will request that you to send money back to them in some way.  What they will do is send you a check for goods or services for more than the amount that is requested.  They will tell you to go ahead and deposit their check and then you are to wire them back the additional money.

In some instances, the scammer will ask you to wire them money for processing, legal fees, taxes, shipping, or any number of other expenses that you are going to have to pay before you will receive your reward or money.  The checks that the scammers will send you will feel and look real no matter if they are a cashier’s check or a personal check.  These checks have even been known to fool a bank teller.  These checks could have been written fraudulently or may be from a legitimate corporation or business.

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Identity theft is in the news a lot but many people are still unsure how to protect themselves from becoming a victim of identity theft.  Some identity thieves will focus on using just one piece of information about you to steal your identity while others will steal your credit cards and max them out before you even know that they are missing.  The best thing that you can do to protect yourself from becoming a victim of identity theft is to be careful who you give out your data to over the phone, watch your personal documents, and be careful of mail theft. Just remember, no one is immune to identity theft and it can happen to you.

Identity thieves do not need your credit card number in order to steal your identity. Sometimes all an identity thief needs is just one piece of information about you and then they can gain access to the rest.  Make sure that you lock up those important documents such as social security cards and birth certificates at home in a safe deposit box which includes any credit cards that you are not using.

Many people do not realize that some of the non-financial personal information that you put online is sometimes enough for your identity to be stolen such as putting your full birthday on any social networking websites.  You should also make sure that you do not put in your home address or phone number on any website that you used for business or personal reasons.  This would include any job search sites.

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This type of identity theft is also known as The Silent Swindler.  It will typically happen when the identity theft uses either a mixture of real and fake or totally fake information in order to create for themselves a new identity. Typically the identity thief will use a real Social Security number with a different or fake name that is associated with that number. This type of identity theft is difficult to tract, report, and detect since the individuals were not aware of it happening.

The reason that the individual is not aware of it happening is that it does not appear on your credit report.  It is a combination of addresses, names, Social Security numbers and more so all this information does not ad up to a single person to claim fraud but a combination of different people.  Most of these will go unreported and eventually will be written of and become charge offs within the financial institution before anyone is aware of the problem.

You can protect yourself from Synthetic Identity Theft by making sure that you shred sensitive documents and mail because identity thieves have no problem going through your trash to find any type of personal information that they can use to steal your identity.  When you get those Social Security benefits booklets make sure that the income that is reported is accurate and there are no discrepancies.

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College campuses are a breeding ground for credit card, computer, and identity theft so students that are heading off to college need to be prepared.  One way that you can prevent any type of theft from happening is make sure that you keep your door locked.  This is one way to prevent your computer from being stolen or any personal information that you might have left lying around plus any credit cards that you have with you.  You should always mark your property in a permanent and visible way.  Sign your credit cards with a sharpie to prevent it from being erased off. Before you leave home engrave your name into your computer somewhere or write some type of identifying mark with a permanent marker that is not erasable like a sharpie.
Even if you have a desktop computer that does not mean that it is safe from being stolen. Invest in some type of inexpensive cables so you can anchor it to something in the room that is not moveable.  Identity thieves not only want your computer or laptop to get information from, they will sell the merchandise on the black market when they get what they want out of it. The same things go for iPads, Notebooks, and Tablets.

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It may be hard to believe but many customers and merchants are most likely to become a victim of identity theft caused by one of the employees rather than by a scamster or criminal outside of the business.   When you get ready to pay and you have a choice of paying as your leave or in a restaurant setting giving the card to a waiter you should opt to pay at the register.  By doing this you are taking the necessary precautions to keep your card from being skimmed which is a scam where the employee takes an unauthorized scan of your credit card.  If you have to give your card to a sales clerk or a waiter try to keep the card in sight at all times.

Make sure that you get your credit card back quickly from the sales clerk or the waiter.  At some bars if you are running a tab the bartender will want you to give them your credit card to keep at the register so you will not stiff the establishment of money.  Do not do this because if the credit card sits at the register or bar it not only get lost or if you have a little too much to drink you may forget to pick it up.  In addition, it might get skimmed or an employee or someone else sitting at the bar that can see the card might take a picture of it with a cell phone camera.

You should also be looking for security cameras because PCI data security standards has a requirement that makes sure merchants who process credit cards in person have to have security cameras trained on the areas of credit card processing but unfortunately many of them do not.  Another area that you should be concerned about is tip fraud which means that whenever you add a service tip onto your card you are risking a tip fraud.

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