7 Surefire Ways to Stop Identity Theft

With tax season right around the corner, many Americans are more concerned than usual with identity theft, and with good cause.

• Last year saw 6.4 million identity theft and fraud cases reported to the FCT, which comes out to about one every 5 seconds.
• WIRED credits data broker breaches alone with almost $21 billion in damages, while bank and payment fraud costs over $2 billion.
• Security.org reports that it takes 22 months on average to fully recover from identity theft, and in the meantime you often can't qualify for new loans, mortgages, or rentals.
• Average losses are just under $500, but nearly 125,000 people reported losing more than $10,000.

There's a lot of services out there that charge you money with promises to protect your identity, but in my opinion they overcharge and underdeliver. Instead, you can protect yourself for a fraction of the price with 7 easy tools and strategies.