With tough financial times upon us, we’re all fighting to keep our jobs, and identity thieves are no exception. The golden days of stealing a tossed-out credit card application and turning it into a real credit card for the thief are gone. Credit card companies are making their approval processes more stringent, and now even legitimate consumers are being denied. Unfortunately, just like everyone else, the thieves are working lots of overtime to compensate for this, so it’s more important than ever to safeguard our financial health.
I found this out the hard way recently when I learned that someone had access to my debit card, checking account, cell phone account, and that most likely, that same someone was
trying to get my Social Security number by calling my employer for a so-called “employment verification.” After more than a few moments of panic and taking the necessary steps to try to correct my situation, I did some research to find out how to make some permanent changes so that this (hopefully) never happens again.
Buy a shredder—and shred even the documents that aren’t a security risk.
It didn’t take long for me to figure out that my thieves probably found their initial information on me by Dumpster diving. I’d been smart enough to spend hours cutting through account numbers, credit card offers, and anything with my social security number on it into tiny pieces before throwing it away. But I’d carelessly thrown away mail that had my full name, address, and employer name on it. (Hence, that employment verification call.) Make an investment in a shredder and shred absolutely everything that has any personal information on it—even if it’s just your name—before throwing it away. This will decrease your chances of becoming a target.
Stop receiving paper statements.
Cut down on your shredding time by setting up online accounts with all of your creditors and banks. Thieves need only a minimal amount of your personal information to have all your mail forwarded to an address of their choice. Stopping paper statements will help ensure that they’ve got very little to work with should they ever gain access to your mail. Plus, you’ll be helping the environment. Keep your mailbox tidy by opting out of credit card offers and other junk mail.
Don’t leave outgoing mail in an unsecured box.
If you can, drop any outgoing mail at a USPS mailbox, rather than leaving it in your mailbox at home or in an “outgoing” box at work. Creditor billing envelopes are pretty easy to spot, so it’s simple to just pick up your envelope, open it, and record all your personal information—including your checking account number.
Secure your social networking sites.
An industrious thief can learn a lot about you simply by reading your Facebook, LinkedIn, or other social networking profiles. One of my profiles contained a list of my favorite pets over the years; since “favorite pet” is a common security question, it wasn’t hard to play the guessing game and gain access to my cell phone account. Social networking sites make it easy to find information like your mother’s maiden name (it’s not so hard to track down anymore), birthdays, anniversaries, universities attended, etc. Change your profile settings so that only friends or those accepted into your network can view your information—be vigilant about accepting only people you really know and trust.
Make your passwords more secure.
Although this seems like common sense, when I took stock of all my passwords, I found that they were probably pretty simple to crack. Passwords should be a series of letters, numbers, and symbols, and the letters should be a mixture of upper and lower case. The longer the better—eight characters is the absolute minimum, but ideally, your password should be fourteen characters or longer. Check out the strength of your password with this password checker.
