Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Protecting Myself From Identity Theft, Day 1
A few nights ago I attended the monthly PTA meeting at my daughter's school. The PTA is a 501(c)3 whose main mission is to raise money for an art teacher. As one can imagine, I am very supportive. My background is fine arts and I want my daughter to grow up well rounded with lots of experiences in the arts.
What does this have to do with Identity Theft? From time to time the PTA brings in a speaker. This month it was a lawyer from the DA's office who came to talk to us about protecting ourselves from identity theft. He gave us a big booklet and an overview on what Identity Thieves are looking for--credit card applications, cheques, boxes of cheques, anything with a social security number, and so forth.
Who are the most prevalent identity thieves? Meth addicts. They are desperate to not get caught and even more desperate to find money to feed the habit. What is the most prevalent way they get your information? Through your trash.
The first step to protecting yourself is to get a shredder. Shred EVERYTHING that you might not want a thief to have. We use our shredded information to start fires in the Napolean Stove we have. Those ashes ultimately end up in our vegatable garden. Our information feeds tomatos.
I am going to walk through, over the next few weeks, all the steps I'm taking to protect myself and my family. If you live in the United States, you might consider taking these steps with me.
Tonight I called the Opt Out Prescreen toll free line. 1-888-567-8688. They have a Web site, but when I got there, the secure certificate could not be validated!
How DUMB is that? So I called the telephone line. This service is like the National No Call list, except it intructs the credit reporting agencies to STOP selling your information to credit card and insurance companies who send you junk mail. It takes up to three months for the junk to stop coming--but it apparently works well.
How nutty is this? They give you the option to opt out for 5 years or for life. 5 years? What are they thinking. In any case, the call took less than five minutes.
The other thing that you can do is get off the telemarketer lists. While this isn't necessarily an issue for identity theft, it sure makes supper time more peaceful. You can get on the no call list easily by filling out a form on this Web site.
<< Home
