Thousands of consumers become victims of identity theft each year, much of it stemming from stolen credit card accounts. It is virtually impossible to stop all identity theft, but there are steps you can take to reduce your exposure. Credit monitoring alert services can warn you about accounts you didn’t open and charges you didn’t authorize, both of which are red flags for fraudulent activity. You benefit when credit monitoring services watch out for a wide range of suspicious activity, such as appearances of your Social Security number or email address on the Dark Web. But no amount of credit monitoring will protect you against fraudulent activity if you don’t pay attention to it. It’s important that any alerts you receive about your credit accounts be accepted by your email inbox rather than shunted aside as spam. Programs like Chase Credit Journey can help protect you from identity theft by sending you real-time alerts when there are changes to your credit report. Most of the free monitoring services provided by credit cards allow you to control the types of alerts you receive. For example, Chase Credit Journey has 14 separate credit monitoring alert settings: five for balance and spending, four for payments, and five for protection and security.