Steps You Should Take If Your Computer is Ever Stolen

These days we depend on our computer for so many things, if it ever got stolen we have a big task on hand. Just think of everything you use your computer for and what you may have stored on it.

It's vital that you do not save any word docs with a list of passwords or bank accounts on your computer. This is going to be one of the first things the person who has your desktop or laptop is going to look for. Also do not have your internet browser save your passwords for you.

Things you will need to do if your computer is every stolen:

File a police report and let them know if you have any personal information on the computer that can led to Identity Theft.

Call Equifax at 800-525-6285 and place a 90 day fraud alert on your credit history. You won't have to call the other two Credit Unions as Equifax will notify the other two Credit Bureaus for you. This process can be repeated after 90 days if you need to extend your credit alert.

Cancel and Replace your credit cards that you use for on line shopping.

Change all your passwords for all your on-line bank accounts, shopping sites, social networks, all your email accounts and anything else that you use a password for.

Precautions you can take now that can save you a lot of work later on if your laptop or desktop is ever stolen:

Never set your internet browser to remember passwords for you.

On the Content Tab of Internet Explorer make sure auto complete for forms and user name/passwords is not checked.

Set your internet browsing history to 0 days so that your browsing history will not be saved when you close Internet Explorer.

Keep a list of all the sites you have gone to in the past year for purchases. Keep this list on paper and store it in a safe place.

If you have many different passwords, also keep them on paper and in a safe place with the rest of your important documents. Do not store them anywhere on your computer.

Go to all your shopping sites that store your credit card information and delete it from you account. When you want to purchase something from that site it will ask you again for your credit card information.

All these precautions may seem like a lot of extra work now but in the long run it will save you a lot of headaches.