Thanks to identity theft awareness programs, many people are now exercising increased caution when online. Most folks understand the danger in revealing too much personal information on the Internet, or falling for phishing scams. However, there are still some persistent myths that may be keeping you from protecting yourself and your identity. Here we will look at just three of these myths, and the facts that lay behind them.

Myth 1: I know what those scams look like, bad spelling and terrible English- who falls for those things anyway?

Fact: Indeed, many people are familiar with the obvious signs of a scam. So many people are wise to these frauds that scammers have begun to outsource their products and develop corporate-like organizations to work on sophisticating their “product”. They are merging, expanding and training to improve their scams. Many of those “work from home” scams you see on craigslist are actually paid positions to edit these scam emails to make sure grammar and spelling are good enough to fool someone into believing the IRS really does have a bailout for you. In addition to emails and phone calls, scammers are moving to text messages and social networks and purchasing uniforms to pose as police, census works, UPS drivers and other “authorities”. Scams and fraud will continue to evolve and become more sophisticated. Remember to regularly look for scam updates from your state Attorney General, the BBB, the FTC and your local news in order to say on your toes.

Myth 2: I do not need to worry about identity theft because: I don’t use my credit and I don’t need credit / My credit is so bad / I’ve placed a alert or freeze on my credit bureauRead more