Protect Your Identity

Identity theft is becoming an enormous problem in the United States and worldwide. Identity theft involves the misuse of your personal information to fraudulently purchase goods, services or open accounts to purchase good and services.

According to a FTC report, identity theft cost victims, businesses and financial institutions $500 billion in 2003. The average victim spent more than 75 hours cleaning up their name and accounts at an average loss of more than $11,000.

Contrary to popular opinion, most identity theft results from stolen mail, stolen wallets or purses, trash rummaging or the victim falling prey to a scam, not online shopping. In fact online shopping with reputable dealers is safer, in many respects, than shopping in your own city. Of course, most retailers operate safe businesses and have reputable employees, but the ever increasing reality is that we must be careful with our personal information.

Follow these guidelines to help keep your personal information and identity safe:

• Buy a shredder and shred all financial mail you may throw away...including credit card offers and bills.

• Never give your social security number without making absolutely sure you know how it will be used and by whom.

• Mail bills and other personal information from a mail drop box or the post office, not your mail box.

• Obtain and review your credit report periodically. It's free from all three credit agencies. Equifax 1-800-525-6285; Experian 1-888-397-3742; TransUnion 1-800-680-7289

• Opt out of receiving unsolicited credit card offers by calling 1-888-567-8688

• If you bank online, make sure you always log out of your session and close the browser window afterwards vs. simply closing the browser window or moving on to a different site

• Use strong passwords containing mixed case letters, numbers and even special characters like *$%&@#. Also, do not use the same password for all your accounts and make sure you change your passwords at least a few times per year. If you have a hard time remembering passwords, check out my tip about safely storing and creating passwords.

• When shopping online, be sure to read the retailers security and privacy statement and be sure there is a phone number available that you can call with questions. Also, make sure you are using a secure connection (look for the gold padlock) when submitting your personal information.

I have listed just a few tips to help you combat identity fraud, you can find more on the web by searching for "prevent identity theft".