Watching Out For Your Own Welfare

This is an incredible world full of remarkable people who have achieved great things. It is also a world which contains a lot of dishonest people and criminals who would do anything to make life miserable for their fellowmen.

Although the hope would be to engage with people who have integrity who want to do honest work and provide for themselves, there are many who would cheat, lie, and steal to get what they want. In that category of people fall those who resort to stealing another person's identity and money.

Needing money is not unusual, and most people will try to earn money honestly such as with regular employment or possibly a home based business (online work or network marketing also known as MLM or multi-level marketing) or find an extra part time job. There are many ways to earn extra money. Some people, however, are regularly committing dishonest acts against others. They are willing to try to improve their own station in life by doing criminal acts instead of working honestly to earn money.

Yet there are those who have mastered the techniques used by the perpetrators of these crimes. They do not seem to often be caught so they keep going. If they would be pursued more aggressively by the companies which may be losing money due to the fraud and law enforcement personnel who become aware of the crimes, these dishonest individuals might be deterred or caught and incarcerated.

So many people are suffering from the crimes of these criminals who are not being caught. It becomes extremely important to watch out for your own welfare. Some ways of doing it are:

• Check your credit report at least once a year
• Have fraud alerts available which alert you to unusual charges
• Check your charges online regularly
• Be careful with your credit card receipts and personal information
• Possibly sign up for a service to protect you in case someone steals your identity

Things can be going along just fine, and we may never imagine that identity theft would happen to us. We are not immune.

Restaurants and gas stations are easy targets for use of someone else's credit card if a person finds or steals a credit card. While checking her credit card charges online, Mary noticed two charges in a far away state. They were for gas and for a restaurant. She had not lost her card so she wondered how those charges could have been approved. She alerted the company that those were not her charges, and she was not held liable for them. She was told that an employee at some establishment might give the credit card number to a friend who uses it. How they can get away with such a thing in this day and age of machine approvals is still unknown. Criminal minds work in devious ways.

Being honest and working hard is admirable, and protecting oneself from those who do otherwise is smart. Being aware and watching out for yourself is important as you are on the quest to earn money and protect the money you have.