Identity Theft Tips

If you have your purse or your wallet stolen, you will probably be stressed out about having to call and cancel everything, but you may not think about the fact that you are now at a higher risk for identity theft. Some pick pocketing victims in New Orleans found that out the hard way. Will get to that in a second but in case your here because you recently had a stolen purse or stolen wallet then learn what to do step by step.

Tomican Newman was arrested for stealing credit cards and checks from people in the French Quarter and selling them to and Gregory Banks, who was also arrested, for a profit. According to police, Newman and Banks’ fraud totaled them $3,800 and $4,750, respectively, making it a pretty lucrative business for them.

They further elaborated to say, “Banks purchased identity documents retrieved from purses and wallets stolen in the French Quarter and altered the driver’s licenses of victims to reflect Newman’s picture.” Banks was caught, in part, because law enforcement officials recognized him as a participant in a previous identity theft ring.

In order to prevent being a victim of a pick pocketing, it’s important to know where your purse or wallet is at all times. Don’t leave it on the back of your chair when you’re eating, set it on top of your car or wear it on your back or in your back pocket, especially in crowded areas. To be extra secure, purchase a neck pouch, which allows you to carry your money, credit cards and identification underneath your clothing.

When you’re out and about, especially if you’re far from where you live, thus out of your comfort zone, don’t take any documents with personal information on them that you don’t need. For example, some people carry their Social Security cards and even birth certificates on their person. That is a definite no-no. If a thief does get a hand on your purse or wallet, you want him to get as little information as possible.

Sometimes you don’t notice that a thief has gotten access to your information, especially if said thief simply writes down the information or photographs it. This makes it important to have a second line of defense, as in an identity protection service. Since identity theft cases have gone up about 12 percent in the past year, it makes sense to get one even if you don’t travel any further than the office and the grocery store. For only a few dollars a month, you can travel – or not – with a little extra peace of mind.

Just like those credit card company representatives that promise students free t-shirts and other garb when signing them up for accounts they will later not be able to repay, many identity thieves look forward to this time of year – the start of a new college semester. This is the time when students will sign up for brand new school sponsored email accounts and flood college libraries all over the country that have sat mostly empty for a lot of the summer.

These two activities lead to lots of personal information flooding the electronic airwaves, and being left to sit on unsecured computers, either in libraries or in dorm rooms or shared apartments – that is if the students don’t make the effort they need to to keep their personal information from becoming public knowledge.

Consider also that most students usually bring with them good or new credit and are inundated with those pre-approved credit offers from the second they enter their educational institution. Add to that the fact that their lack of experience in monitoring their credit and personal details can sometimes leave them somewhat exposed and you can see how they can become a prime target of identity thieves or their new roommate who is in need of a quick buck. Read more about this in our article – College Students – Do they need Identity Protection?

So what can you do. First of all, have a talk about identity theft with your student to be and make them aware of the dangers. Share with them these quick yet effective identity theft tips. They can help everyone from the graduating senior to the incoming freshman, and may even help you:

1. Don’t conduct financial transactions, manage bank accounts or input personal information using the library or shared computers of any type for any reason. You never know who will use the computer you abandon next, or who will hack into the university’s network.

2. Log off of public computers after using them, whether it is a computer in the lab or one in a shared dorm room or apartment. Even if the computer doesn’t contain bank information or Social Security numbers, you still need to keep your log in information and passwords from prying eyes.

3. Keep personal details, such as your phone number and address, off of Facebook and other social networking sites. Putting settings so that “only friends” can see your details doesn’t really do a lot. It’s pretty easy for those with technical know how to hack into any account on these networks.

4. Password protect your cell phone and laptop. Use a password that is at least six digits long and has special characters, numbers and letters in it, if this is at all possible. Never use personal information, like your birth date or year, as your password. Change passwords frequently and use a different one for each device.

5. Look for a popup window that asks if you’d like to save your password when you log into accounts on the computer. Never check this box, even if you are the only one that uses the computer. That way the password isn’t stored.

6. Download the latest updates for your anti-virus software as soon as they become available. This will help to keep your machine virus free and protect it from the newest versions of malware and spyware. Be sure your software is made by a reputable company before installing it.

7. Don’t trust your new roommate until you know you can trust your roommate. At least keep your personally identifiable information secure from them.

8. Consider an identity theft protection service. There are plans available that even those subsisting on ramen noodles, kraft dinner and water can afford. Many are only about a quarter per day. An identity protection plan is exponentially better than having no protection. Just ask the millions of Americans, including more than a few college students, who have their identities stolen each year.

Take some time to compare identity theft protection services today.

It’s no longer debatable whether or not cell phones have become almost as essential to American life as water and air. You can use them to watch movies, to send pictures, to make purchases and even to bank. Since you need passwords for the last two of these activities that makes them of special interest to identity thieves. If a thief can obtain your password, he or she can control your account and create additional accounts in some cases. This can be especially dangerous when you use your cell phone for banking.

Another problem with this cell phone technology is that some cell phone networks can be hacked. For instance, Nokia 1100 phones are selling for tens of thousands of dollars on the black market because of vulnerability in the software that allows thieves to pull personal information from the phone’s network to use or sell to others. It didn’t take long for the thieves to figure out this fact, even though the hackable phones are only of this one model and only those that were made in a specific German factory. Truth is, good news travels fast. Well, it’s good news for them anyway.

The first thing you should do to protect your cell phone is to put a password on it. This will make it so no one can use it but you, since you have to key in a code every time it locks up. Make sure it locks up on a regular basis, not once every 24 hours.

Secondly, don’t store account passwords on your phone. Even if you have it locked, a thief who gets it in his or her possession can probably figure out your password if given enough time, especially if it is simply numeric, as many phones require them to be. It’s best not to let the thief get access to anything else in the process.

Here is an old post that has some general password tips.

Thirdly, when you do type in your password, either to unlock your phone or to access your account, make sure there is no one nearby looking over your shoulder. You’d be surprised how much shoulder skimmers can learn just by being in the right place at the right time.

This careful behavior should help mitigate the risk, but it won’t guarantee an identity thief won’t get your information. Over 500 million records have been stolen in the last five years containing Americans’ account information and other personal details. Most of this information was not used by identity thieves, but the potential was certainly there.

To keep yourself safe, consider buying identity theft protection. It may not keep your information, or your phone, out of a thief’s hands, but it will let you know almost as soon as it gets there. You can find out if your info is on online databases for sell or trade, even before it’s been used fraudulently. Then you can take further steps to protect it and contact the authorities to help them go after the criminals. That’s just one more thing that your cell phone can help you with.

Whether you’ve been a victim of identity theft or you’re just worried that it might have happened to you, you have the legal right, per the FACT Act, to place a fraud alert on your credit file. The Fact Act states that to place a fraud alert on your file you must have “a good faith suspicion that you have or are about to become a victim of fraud or related crime including identity theft”.

What is a Fraud Alert

A fraud alert is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a warning of potential fraud that gets added as a note in your credit report. In theory, potential creditors will see this note and contact you before opening credit in your name, thus stopping identity thieves from completing their treacherous work.

However, in practice, a creditor doesn’t have to call you if you have a fraud alert on your file. All he or she needs to do is take an extra step or “reasonable measures” to verify that the applicant is really you. This could take the form of a phone call to the number you have on the fraud alert or the number on the credit application. The creditor could alternately choose to send you an email or could simply deny the application if verifying identity proves too difficult – which is excellent if the applicant isn’t you, but an inconvenience if it is.

Setting up a fraud alert is pretty easy if you just want a 90-day alert. All you have to do is call one or more of the major credit bureaus, TransUnion, Equifax and Experian, and ask to have one placed on your file. Each bureau has a dedicated number for this purpose, which you can find at the end of this article. Once you have an alert set up, you must renew it each time it expires to keep it in working order.

It gets a little trickier if you want the more comprehensive seven-year fraud alert. You’ll have to actually prove that you’ve been a victim of identity theft via a police report, court statement or other official document. This alert will include a statement that you’ve been a victim of identity theft in the past. To request an extended alert you’ll have to write a letter. Calling is not sufficient. Do a quick search and you’ll find several templates that can tell you exactly what terminology to use.

If you decide to remove a fraud alert, you’ll also need to do so in writing. This is an extra precaution in case an identity thief takes it upon him or herself to complete this step for you. However, if you simply have a 90-day alert, it may be worth it to just let it expire on its own.

To request that 90-day alert, use the following contact information:

• TransUnion, Fraud Victim Assistance Department, Phone: 800-680-7289
• Equifax, Consumer Fraud Division, Phone: 800-525-6285 or: 404-885-8000
• Experian, Experian’s National Consumer Assistance, Phone: 888-397-3742

If you don’t want to spend the time and energy, or simply want better protection, then invest in an identity theft protection plan. Though they no longer place fraud alerts on your behalf, they do monitor your credit reports and personal information for signs of identity theft and notify you of any potential risks. You can compare fraud alerts to credit monitoring here.

You may also want to read our reviews on LifeLock, TrustedID and Identity Guard for detailed information on how each service can help protect your identity. Combined with a fraud alert, which we recommend if you meet the spirit of the FACT Act, its a one two punch that should leave you standing and any identity thieves foiled.

Protect yourself today.


Any time is a good time for identity thieves to get personal information from people who leave papers containing such information in unlocked mailboxes, but no time is better than tax time, when we receive a number of items that have our names, birthdates and Social Security numbers on them. One way to try to stop the thieves is to contact your local post office and ask to have a hold put on your mail. Leave the hold on until all of your tax documents arrive. That way you’ll be sure they don’t make it out of the post office.

With this one problem solved, there are still others. Firstly, there are those identity thieves who think it is a good idea to try to impersonate IRS personnel. You could get an email purporting to be from the IRS saying that you need to go to a certain website in order to get your refund – and be conveniently supplied with a link to click on. You could get a phone call where the caller says he or she needs your bank account number to process your return. In either of these cases, it’s almost 100% certain that the person that’s contacting you is not from the IRS.

The IRS is aware of these scams and has even set up an email address, [email protected], which you can use to report unsolicited emails. The IRS says that it does not use email as an initial contact point, and it doesn’t need your bank account number to process your return. If you don’t supply it, they can simply send you a check.

When you’re mailing your tax return, if you don’t decide to e-file, you should always go to the post office. Yes, this is true even if you have to drive there with the masses at midnight on the 15th of April. This is the best way to determine (a) that your return will actually get mailed out on time and (b) it will not get misdirected, either accidentally or on purpose, on its way there. If your mailbox doesn’t have a lock on it, you should do this for all sensitive mail, not just especially for your tax return.

For additional protection, and peace of mind, you may want to look at an identity theft protection service. Some, such as LifeLock, even have fraud detection tools that notify you if anyone has changed your address, which thieves do to re-route your mail and get their dirty hands on your private information.

Once you’re done with your taxes, shred any paperwork you don’t need to keep well enough that it will be near impossible for a thief to piece it together again. If you have your tax information saved on your computer, insure that your firewall and your security software are up to date. Put a password on your machine so that others can’t use it if it’s at the office, in a public area or in a place in your home where visitors may get access to it.

Identity theft is not going down. Javelin Research stated that, like in 2008, there were about 10 million identity theft victims in this country in 2009. It’s best not to make yourself a promising target – that’s not where you want your refund to go.