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Your mail is likely filled with plenty of pre-approved credit card offers on a weekly, if not daily basis. Did you know that these simple pieces of paper could cause you to become the victim of identity theft? If you do not properly dispose of the pre-approved offers, if you are accepting them or you do not opt-out of the offers altogether, you could be at risk for someone stealing your identity from underneath you. Before you become a victim, it is important to determine the best identity theft protection for yourself. What are Pre-Approved Offers? You’ve likely gotten pre-approved credit card offers in the mail before. These offers are sent to those consumers that the creditor has predetermined is worthy of the credit line. The offer does not have specifics, including the exact credit limit that is being extended, but enough information is supplied by the credit bureaus to the creditor that someone who got hold of the papers could easily assume your identity. These pre-approved offers could prove to be very dangerous and need to be stopped or criminals could steal your identity and open many accounts in your name without your knowledge. Get Credit Monitoring One of the best methods of defense is to ensure that you are monitoring your credit report regularly. This is typically best when you pay for a service to monitor your report and to alert you of an activity. If someone were to get hold of your pre-approved offers and accept them without your knowledge, you would be alerted by the credit bureaus right away. This would allow you to stop the criminal activity in its tracks rather than finding out a month or two down the road when the criminal has already done plenty of damage to your credit. This is a very crucial step if you do accept pre-approved offers in the mail as it is the best way to protect yourself. Opt Out The next best thing that you can do in order to get the best identity theft protection for yourself is to opt out of pre-approved offers. This measure will limit the credit cards that you are aware of, which for some people can be a negative, especially if they find themselves in need of emergency money, but it is a way to stop the thieves from having anything to steal from you. When you receive pre-approved offers and do not accept them, if they are not properly disposed, thieves can fish them out of the garbage and act as you, accepting the card. When you opt out of offers, there is nothing to worry about and you can protect your credit. Make Shredding a Habit If you do decide that you want the pre-approved offers sent to you, even if you are monitoring your credit regularly, you need to shred all documents with your information on it. This will disable thieves from being able to obtain your information and accept cards on your behalf or apply for different cards with your information. If you get in the habit of shredding all personal information, there is nothing for the criminals to piece together in your trash, which can save your credit in the long run. Pre-approved credit card offers have a good and bad side to them. If you often take advantage of the offers that are sent to you, it might not be in your best interest to opt out of them. If this is the case, it is very important that you have the best identity theft protection available on your account. When you have credit monitoring on your file, you are notified of any activity that occurs on your account. If someone were to get a hold of your information as a result of stealing your pre-approved offers, you would know about it right away. If you do not have any type of monitoring, however, you could become a victim of identity theft and find yourself with many problems with your credit, including damaging your credit score and having to deal with thousands of dollars of fraudulent charges on your accounts. Joy Mali is an active blogger who is fond of writing articles on credit monitoring and educating people to monitor their monthly credit report to prevent you to be a victim of credit fraud. Follow her on Twitter to know more on how pre approved credit card offers can be good or bad.
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