Lowering your Id Theft Risk with SmartPages.com

Here's a scary thought: suppose your child, a single
person, or anyone gives out their phone number &
someone can actually look it up using various online
services to find out where you live.

Plus, many of these on-line "reverse lookup" sites
also offer background checks and searches for public
records for a fee on the person identified through a
telephone number, name or address. Through these
searches, everything from criminal and civil records
to property and licensing records can expose further
your personal information to a potential identity
thief to use to fraudulently represent you.

With the ability of some of these services to cross
reference not only traditional land lines to your
physical address, but now the ability to also include
wireless numbers for reverse searching, the prospect
of your personal identity theft grows even larger.

A quick check of SuperPages.com's reverse phone lookup
service http://www.whitepages.com/10692/reverse_phone
can reveal in just 5 or less mouse clicks the
following personal identity information on you & your
spouse either directly or via linked partners:

• Full address (including street & zip code)
  
• Previous addresses (including street, zip code & phone
  numbers) up to 10 years ago
  
• Your current age
  
• Schools attended
  
• Neighbors, relatives, & former room mates
  
• Marriages & divorces
  
• Home value & Property ownership
  
• Much more...

All of that data can be either delivered instantly
on-line or within 1 hour via email.

That's why ID Theft Secrets blog recommends you
request your personal information to be removed from
on-line services such as SmartPages.com.

As a sub-unit of SBC, SmartPages.com, is a major
player in the on-line directory space. SBC, one of
the largest U.S. telecommunication companies, owns
Cingular Wireless, Pacific Telesis, Ameritech, &
several other units of the former regional bell
operating companies.

SmartPages.com doesn't directly provide a page on
their website for consumers to request removal of
their personal information. However, SBC does and
it's located at http://www.sbc.com/gen/privacy-policy?pid=2576

We strongly urge you follow this tip to protect your
personal information from identity theft and also
please forward this tip to your friends and relatives.

Stay tuned for more related tips coming over the next
few days from ID Theft Secrets blog .