Consumers are vulnerable to identity thieves, both online and offline. It can happen when you least think about it. Maybe when you have your shopping bag full of receipts, or your mailbox filled with special card promotions. Or maybe when you leave your house empty to go on vacation. These are all great opportunities for identity thieves.

Rick Kam, president of identity theft protection and personal identity recovery company ID Safeguards, stated: "The holiday season is ripe for identity thieves to do their dirty work, and whether you realize it or not, you may be helping them. By taking a few simple steps, you can protect yourself from the efforts of fraudsters."

Consumers can now protect themselves from online and offline identity thieves by taking a few simple measures. One of the tips would be not to make your whereabouts public on the Internet. For example, you should not send e-mail messages to notify you're on vacation. You shouldn't notify it on your blog or social networking site either. If you want to let people know you will not be at their disposal for some time, find an excuse, like spending time with your family or not feeling like updating your blog over the holidays.

    
Another advice would be to change your online accounts passwords every year.

Also, you should pay more attention when using your credit cards and make sure that the sales assistants won't find methods to have your credit card numbers swiped.

Furthermore, it is advisable not to throw away your online and offline shopping receipts.  It is not a pleasant job to analyze your holiday shopping receipts, but it should be done in order to avoid any danger of being stolen. You should make a call to your credit card company if something doesn't seem right. In addition, only on credit card should be used at once and debit cards should definitely not be used for online shopping. If you use them, thieves will have direct access to your bank account.


Another tip: if you're planning to go away for a while, have your mail handled. A hold should be placed on your mail with the post office and newspaper delivery should be stopped, because a full mail box and a pile of newspapers are like an alarm signal to identity thieves, who will know you're not home.

   
You are also advised to use only known and trustworthy sources on the Internet in order to do your shopping.

    
For more information on the subject, you can visit http://www.IDSafeguards.blogspot.com .

    
Families and individuals are protected by ID Safeguards FraudStop(TM) from the growing threat of identity theft. Proprietary technology is used by FraudStop in order to protect consumers against identity theft.
 
FraudStop is offered at $99 and $149 for family membership over the holidays.
To sign up for FraudStop, you can visit http://www.IDSafeguards.com/holiday2007 .

Consumers and corporate customers are offered protection services by ID Safeguards.  360-degree identity protection is provided by  ID Safeguards by monitoring more than 1,500 databases to prevent all means of identity theft.
For more information, you can visit http://www.IDSafeguards.com .