My 10 (well, six) commandments for avoiding identity theft.
• Thou shalt not leave credit card receipts at the hotel check in desk. I was checking into a hotel one fine vacation day and there, right at my finger tips was all the information I needed, not only to put my room charges on a careless young lady's tab, but to steal her credit card information as well.
• Thou shalt destroy all identity explicit material. All address labels on magazines, catalogs and packages - POOF!
• Thou shalt destroy all expired auto registrations and licenses. Wouldn't it be a shock if a suspect identified as you and a vehicle matching yours were involved in some heinous crime? Wouldn't it be more of a shock if you rather than the real hoodlum were snagged?
• Thou shalt destroy all junk mail. With nothing more than your forged signature, the world's dumpster divers and trash day scavengers can rely on the Postal Service's favorite mail box stuffer as an excellent source of pirated freebies.
• Thou shalt not leave ATM receipts in the ATM (or gas pump) I see this one quite often. Man, some of these remaining balances are like, WOW!
• Thou shalt not pay bills via the Internet. No matter how vigorously computer geeks defend this practice, until the Internet is absolutely secure against hackers, cyber thieves, scammers and especially Big Brother, I will always be a paranoid, non-conforming old fuddy dud and pay bills the old-fashioned way.
Temptation is certainly tempting. Careless people are lucky I'm honest.
So folks there it is. It seems many identity thefts are self-inflicted. Paper shredders are cheap. A book of matches and a burn barrel are likewise. Identity theft may not be totally avoided, but we can reduce the odds.
Paul N. Luziani
Union Springs
• Thou shalt destroy all identity explicit material. All address labels on magazines, catalogs and packages - POOF!
• Thou shalt destroy all expired auto registrations and licenses. Wouldn't it be a shock if a suspect identified as you and a vehicle matching yours were involved in some heinous crime? Wouldn't it be more of a shock if you rather than the real hoodlum were snagged?
• Thou shalt destroy all junk mail. With nothing more than your forged signature, the world's dumpster divers and trash day scavengers can rely on the Postal Service's favorite mail box stuffer as an excellent source of pirated freebies.
• Thou shalt not leave ATM receipts in the ATM (or gas pump) I see this one quite often. Man, some of these remaining balances are like, WOW!
• Thou shalt not pay bills via the Internet. No matter how vigorously computer geeks defend this practice, until the Internet is absolutely secure against hackers, cyber thieves, scammers and especially Big Brother, I will always be a paranoid, non-conforming old fuddy dud and pay bills the old-fashioned way.
Temptation is certainly tempting. Careless people are lucky I'm honest.
So folks there it is. It seems many identity thefts are self-inflicted. Paper shredders are cheap. A book of matches and a burn barrel are likewise. Identity theft may not be totally avoided, but we can reduce the odds.
Paul N. Luziani
Union Springs
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Farmer's Gal wrote on Jan 12, 2009 8:22 AM:
Online sites have been so concerned with security of the transmission, that hackers seldom ever even try to steal the info at that point, unless you are careless enough to use wireless, which cannot be as thoroughly secured. On the other hand, members of my family and myself have had things stolen out of our United States mail on more than one occasion. The security on the internet is better, in my opinion.
Your biggest dangers for identity theft are writing down your access info (i.e. passwords) and having someone gain physical access to that list, or having someone hack information in where it is stored, regardless if it got to the storage server via mail, phone, internet or in-person transaction. "