Avoiding Business Identity Theft

Identity theft can happen to anyone - or any business, for that matter. All identity theft is, is the use of a person (or business') personally identifying assets, such as a SSN or an EIN/TaxID, to either access accounts and funds owned by the person or business, or to open new accounts (i.e. for loans) in the name of the business or person. This identification can also be used to commit crimes which can be traced back to you or your business.

One common use of business identity theft is to get to your customers. A scammer, after getting the names and addresses of your customers, may impersonate your business in e-mails, postal mail or other means to gain the customer's confidence that the correspondence is, indeed, from you and exploit that trust. Not only will this hurt the customer, but the customer may not even know the person hurting them isn't your business.

To avoid this, and other problems with identity theft, it is important to secure your data at every possible level. If you use computers, they should be adequately protected by security software and hardware, including firewalls and port blockers if they have internet access. Be careful when and where you use business credit cards - always ensure that websites are up to date on their encryption systems and never give your information to strangers over the phone. Shred all documents thoroughly before throwing them away. Additionally, create some way for the customer to confirm that a message they may get is really from you before they take any action.