Who are the ID thieves?
Drug addicts – remember the Mail drop box found in the meth house when drug agents busted the occupants for selling Meth- we talked about this on an earlier blog. These addicts were also supporting their drug habit through identity theft. That is why they had preyed the mail drop box off of its foundation where it had been bolted to the concrete sidewalk. They were trying to obtain information from outgoing mail – bill payments, letters containing account information, checks sent, pre-approved credit card offer replies, catalog mail orders and the likes.
Organized criminal groups are becoming perpetrators of identity theft- they are becoming better at developing more creative and believable scams and more effective ways to steal your information and access your financial accounts or your credit. Don’t get blamed if you have bad credit and they target you making your credit even worse – If you have less that stellar credit, even facing bankruptcy, you especially must pay attention to what you need to do to protect yourself.
Your nephew, grandchild, sibling, parent
Unfortunately an increasing number of identity theft victims are finding out that a friend, coworker or family member has stolen and used their information. How can this be, you ask? Unfortunately many thieves (and even some victims – after they recover and have enough time to forget how painful that recovery was- )think that ID theft is a victimless crime. They think that only the credit companies and banks or insurance companies pay the price for identity theft. On the contrary the victim always pays the biggest price. And in many cases we all pay the price
Bank – victims don’t get money back
Credit cards, mortgage - costs go up to all of us
In fact our national economy loses approximately $50 to $200 million every year to identity theft – not enough to solve world hunger or make world peace but definitely could be a shot in the arm to our economy almost any year.
What can you do to protect yourself from these criminals.
Protect your SSN, your bank account and other financial information, credit and other credit information and protecting other types of information that they can also use to commit medical, insurance, and government assistance or tax fraud.
We will look at each of these areas and specific steps you can take to protect yourself from ID thieves. Then we will also look at the keys to stream lining your recovery if you are already a victim of ID theft over the next few weeks! Visit us here each week where we analyze the problem of identity theft and help find solutions for everyone.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Friday, May 18, 2007
Understanding how thieves steal your personal info- and how you can stop them!
Let’s look at how ID thieves steal your info: By understanding this you may be able to stop a criminal from victimizing you or your family members. You'll also learn simple things that you can start doing today to begin protecting your information from these criminals.
For example if I simply tell you not to put your out going mail in the blue and white US postal service drop boxes that you find on the street corners in most towns and cities you would ask why and be unimpressed and unlikely you would not follow my suggestions. But if I explain that drug enforcement officers in Colorado found a mail drop box in the living room of a “meth” house they busted you will understand that criminals – at least in Colorado and likely in other states too - are prying the bolts that hold these mail-drop boxes out of the concrete and stealing the boxes to obtain information to commit identity theft and support their drug habit. A failure to understand the risks can leave you vulnerable to some very creative identity thieves.
So, how do identity thieves steal information?
They steal outgoing mail from mail drop boxes on the street corner, from the mail box in front of your house (the red flag is a red flag to ID thieves). Out going mail may contain checks you have written or other important information that you send to your bank, insurance company, credit card companies, the IRS or your tax preparer, other government agencies...
Identity thieves steal information directly from victims by stealing their wallet, purse, computer, PDA. They may steal information out of your car including your car registration and insurance or out of your purse you left in the car because you did not want to take it inside your gym, a bar or restaurant, when you run into the stop and shop for 2 minutes…
ID thieves also steal information from a victim’s home or office. Unfortunately 16% of the time, the ID thief is a friend, associate, co-worker or family member of the victim. These people have ample opportunity to steal your information out of your home, car or office space when they are an invited guest (in your home) or legally have the right to be in your office space.
Online the hazards are many and vastly varying scams, keylogging programs and other hacking programs proliferate presenting great risks to you online. I often hear that But, even if you never go online, you still face significant risk from because most individuals actually have their information stolen in the real world
ID thieves also steal from a company that provides them services or has sold them a product, or they are tricked into revealing it themselves through some creative scam. In short the hazards abound and are all around you, which is why, In short, we are all at risk for becoming a victim of identity theft. But there are certain things that put us more at risk.
We will look closer at who the ID thieves are and what you can do to protect yourself from ID thieves or recover from ID theft if you are already a victim over the next few weeks! Visit us here each week where we analyze the problem of identity theft and help find solutions for everyone.
For example if I simply tell you not to put your out going mail in the blue and white US postal service drop boxes that you find on the street corners in most towns and cities you would ask why and be unimpressed and unlikely you would not follow my suggestions. But if I explain that drug enforcement officers in Colorado found a mail drop box in the living room of a “meth” house they busted you will understand that criminals – at least in Colorado and likely in other states too - are prying the bolts that hold these mail-drop boxes out of the concrete and stealing the boxes to obtain information to commit identity theft and support their drug habit. A failure to understand the risks can leave you vulnerable to some very creative identity thieves.
So, how do identity thieves steal information?
They steal outgoing mail from mail drop boxes on the street corner, from the mail box in front of your house (the red flag is a red flag to ID thieves). Out going mail may contain checks you have written or other important information that you send to your bank, insurance company, credit card companies, the IRS or your tax preparer, other government agencies...
Identity thieves steal information directly from victims by stealing their wallet, purse, computer, PDA. They may steal information out of your car including your car registration and insurance or out of your purse you left in the car because you did not want to take it inside your gym, a bar or restaurant, when you run into the stop and shop for 2 minutes…
ID thieves also steal information from a victim’s home or office. Unfortunately 16% of the time, the ID thief is a friend, associate, co-worker or family member of the victim. These people have ample opportunity to steal your information out of your home, car or office space when they are an invited guest (in your home) or legally have the right to be in your office space.
Online the hazards are many and vastly varying scams, keylogging programs and other hacking programs proliferate presenting great risks to you online. I often hear that But, even if you never go online, you still face significant risk from because most individuals actually have their information stolen in the real world
ID thieves also steal from a company that provides them services or has sold them a product, or they are tricked into revealing it themselves through some creative scam. In short the hazards abound and are all around you, which is why, In short, we are all at risk for becoming a victim of identity theft. But there are certain things that put us more at risk.
We will look closer at who the ID thieves are and what you can do to protect yourself from ID thieves or recover from ID theft if you are already a victim over the next few weeks! Visit us here each week where we analyze the problem of identity theft and help find solutions for everyone.
Friday, April 13, 2007
How Much do You Know About Protecting Yourself From Identity Theft?
The goal of this blog is to help you protect your social security number (SSN), inoculating yourself against scams, and teach you about the other simple easy steps that you can take to protect yourself from identity thieves.
Think you are already immune? So did 1 in 3 other individuals who have already become victims of ID theft over the past. Make a commitment to yourself to learn all you can and start taking more steps to protect yourself from ID theft.
So are you doing every thing you can to protect yourself? – Most likely not!
Everyone knows someone who has had their identity stolen. Or maybe you have been a victim yourself. So you are careful with your SSN & credit cards but are you careful enough? Last year 10 million people did not do enough to protect themselves and they became victims of identity theft. What was it that you know or did that kept you from becoming a victim of ID theft and allowed someone else to become a victim? Likely nothing - you were just lucky so far – Why do I say that? Because a Privacy & American Business survey found that a majority of individuals do not know how identity thieves work or how to protect themselves.
If you are like most people you are asking yourself - what don’t I know? – I have heard about scams on the news, read an article about shredding, what else can there be? – there are lots more things almost 60 things you can do: simple things that you can do or in some cases not do to protect your SSN, bank accounts, drivers license information, there are actually ways to inoculate yourself against all scams past, present, and almost any future scams that these creative criminal can come up with.
You probably have heard about a few of these things like shredding and not carrying your SSN in your wallet but there are may more things you should do and the ID thieves are always finding new ways to steal and use victim info – Did you know someone could steal your information and buy a house in Florida, get out of a speeding ticket in Arizona or have a baby in California? People have done all of these things. If this surprises you may want to read on/ listen in again next week because I will be providing the latest information on how identity thieves steal information, the newest and most creative scams you don’t want to fall for and the many other steps that you can take to reduce your risk of identity theft - unless of course that is you want to become a victim of identity theft.
Think you are already immune? So did 1 in 3 other individuals who have already become victims of ID theft over the past. Make a commitment to yourself to learn all you can and start taking more steps to protect yourself from ID theft.
So are you doing every thing you can to protect yourself? – Most likely not!
Everyone knows someone who has had their identity stolen. Or maybe you have been a victim yourself. So you are careful with your SSN & credit cards but are you careful enough? Last year 10 million people did not do enough to protect themselves and they became victims of identity theft. What was it that you know or did that kept you from becoming a victim of ID theft and allowed someone else to become a victim? Likely nothing - you were just lucky so far – Why do I say that? Because a Privacy & American Business survey found that a majority of individuals do not know how identity thieves work or how to protect themselves.
If you are like most people you are asking yourself - what don’t I know? – I have heard about scams on the news, read an article about shredding, what else can there be? – there are lots more things almost 60 things you can do: simple things that you can do or in some cases not do to protect your SSN, bank accounts, drivers license information, there are actually ways to inoculate yourself against all scams past, present, and almost any future scams that these creative criminal can come up with.
You probably have heard about a few of these things like shredding and not carrying your SSN in your wallet but there are may more things you should do and the ID thieves are always finding new ways to steal and use victim info – Did you know someone could steal your information and buy a house in Florida, get out of a speeding ticket in Arizona or have a baby in California? People have done all of these things. If this surprises you may want to read on/ listen in again next week because I will be providing the latest information on how identity thieves steal information, the newest and most creative scams you don’t want to fall for and the many other steps that you can take to reduce your risk of identity theft - unless of course that is you want to become a victim of identity theft.
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