Never Give out SSN

Why You Should Never Give out SSN:

The importance of confidential information is huge and it’s extremely important to know what type of information is never to be given out. Your credit card number can be a useful tool in the hands of thieves, but it’s an even bigger danger if your social security number is made public. Identity theft can be performed using SSN and this can cause lots of damages indeed. You should be extra cautious about this and never give out SSN, no matter who wants to know it.

Lots of fraud attempts are performed by the phone and the social security number is a common target for the thieves. The fact that those people that are trying to steal your identity are well trained is to be considered and it’s probably the best to simply make a rule out of this sentence: “Never give out SSN”. Thieves use many scenarios to convince you that they need your SSN for good reason and if you fall in their trap and provide the information they need it’s possible to lose important money and benefits. It’s also true that there are places where you need to provide it, like banks, schools and hospitals, but don’t do it over the phone. A bank or a hospital wouldn’t ask for confidential data on the phone so, if someone calls pretending to be the employee of such an institution and ask for your personal information, don’t provide anything over the phone or mail.

The internet is also used by thieves to gather important information about you and then make withdraws from your accounts. With just the Social Security Number it’s possible to gather enough information about a person to find out an account number and from that to big withdraw from your bank account is a very short way. Also, a big problem is the fact that you’ll not know you’re a victim of identity theft until you’ll need your money for a big purchase. This problem can disappear if you use a legitimate online account tracking service such as freecreditreport.com or Lifeock.com to periodically verify your bank accounts.

As many of your personal information is tied to the social security number, it’s very important to realize that and to never give out SSN over the internet or over the phone.