You might think that a St. Louis used car dealer wouldn’t really have to worry much about identity theft. Unfortunately, you would be wrong. It seems that there are no businesses who truly don’t need to worry about identity theft.

Identity theft used to be the hottest buzzword in the internet crime world. It seems every day we were hearing about someone whose identity had been stolen. It even affected a few celebrities, making it clear that really anyone, even someone whose face is instantly recognizable, could have their identity stolen.

And yes, even someone with bad credit is at risk. There are identity thieves who will gladly take an identity of someone, even if they don’t have the best credit record.

Staying safe from identity theft is usually just a matter of making your identity difficult to steal. Identity thieves are opportunists, looking for easy prey. Here’s what you can do to make sure you stay safe from identity thieves.

Don’t give out your social security number, credit card number, drivers license number, bank account number, or any identification information unless you have to.

Before throwing away anything with sensitive information on it, make sure it’s shredded. If you don’t have a shredder, tear the document’s numbers into pieces, and throw half of them out at work.

Check the security of websites. If you’re planning to buy something on a website, make sure the page you buy from uses the HTTPS prefix, not HTTP. You can check for this by looking at the very beginning of the website’s address, and seeing if there is an ‘s’.