This is seriously braggadocios. But it’s a nice way to end 2010 on a highnote.
2010 was a great year. 2011 will be great-er. Thanks to all.
Thank you McAfee, ADT, Gemalto, Intelius, Knowem, RSA, and all my dynamite clients!
Happy New Year!
Anyway, she was freaked out and wanted to know what to do. There are certain things you can do now, before your wallet is lost or stolen, to mitigate future damage, and other things that should be done once a wallet is missing.
While you still have your wallet, thin it out as much as possible. If you have multiple credit cards, store cards, Social Security cards, insurance cards, and more, then, “Houston, we have a problem.” All these ancillary cards serve no purpose other than putting you at risk for new account fraud or account takeover.
Remove unnecessary cards and put them in a safe, or cut them up and cancel the accounts. I have a MasterCard and an American Express, and if everyone took American Express I’d only have one card. I also carry a Costco card, driver’s license, and a debit card to make deposits and get cash. That’s it.
Beyond that, no other card is needed, including insurance cards. Insurance cards only need to be carried the day of an appointment. They are not necessary in emergency situations.
Photocopy all the cards in your wallet (front and back) and keep them in a safe.
When your wallet is lost or stolen, pull out the photocopies of your cards. Call the
Identity theft is a growing problem. And one way of controlling it is to be notified anytime a credit card or bank loan is opened under your name. Sure, you can check your credit report regularly, but in addition to that, it’s never a bad idea to call the three major credit bureaus and place a fraud alert on your accounts.
What is a fraud alert? Fraud alerts are flags on your credit reports that notify creditors of possible fraud or unauthorized activity on your accounts. By placing a fraud alert on your credit report, this means that any time you, or someone else, opens up a new credit card, bank loan, or the like, you will be notified for clarification and authorization before anything is done by the creditor. Let’s take a walk-through on the process of placing a fraud alert.
First, call up the fraud department of each of the credit bureaus. It is best to use your cell phone for contact, since if you are at a store applying for credit, the creditors can reach you quickly and easily with that number. Ask to have your account flagged for fraud. Within 24 hours, this will be activated. You
Due to the fact that identity theft is so rampant – with about 10 million victims a year – a lot of financial institutions are stepping up their security methods in order to help prevent identity theft. Here are some of the things they are doing, that go beyond just asking three privacy questions instead of one:
*Assigning a code a customer must use when initiating a funds transfer. This means that thieves need to have this code in order to perform that transaction.
*Initiating a notification to the bank when a customer changes his online bill pay to have a new recipient. This can prevent thieves from transferring themselves money from someone else’s account under the ruse of being a payment recipient.
*Using analytics to tell when a person logs on to his or her account from a channel not normally used; for example not from the office or home computer. This can help the bank notice a thief accessing the account from another city or country.
*Tracking transactions by IP address to tell what computer they were initiated from. This can help the bank trace the transaction back to a specific geographic location where it was made, in many cases.
Three of the biggest banks, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America, started a company called Early Warning Services. This
So, you have just realized that someone has stolen your identity and is racking up debt left and right, and you want to put a stop to it, but you don’t know what to do. Well, keep reading, because in this article you will learn exactly what to do when you are a victim of identity theft. Once you have absorbed this information, act quickly, because the sooner you start fighting for your identity, the sooner you will win.
You will probably receive a phone call from a creditor stating “you” just either made a large purchase and they suspect fraud or you open your credit card bill as you do every month and be amazed at some extra charges that are on there. Call your credit card company immediately. Rarely, will you be liable for charges over $50, and many credit card companies wave the first $50 in the case of fraud. Check with your bank, you will usually be given a choice to close your account and reopen a new one or some banks will put a “watch” on your account and you will have to log into your account and manually approve every charge and check before it is cleared. This usually goes on for a period of 30-60 days. The latte
It’s no secret that identity theft can cause a consumer a lot of problems. He has to contact creditors to report the crime and change his or her account information, she has to try to get the money back that the thief has spent, and he has to work with the authorities to try to catch the criminal.
All of these things cost the victim time, and invariably money too. But there is another cost that the victim has to bear. That is an emotional one. When people think of identity theft, their thoughts often turn to the money lost, but it is not the only thing they worry about.
A Harris interactive poll came out with the following results, which you may find surprising: *Over 50 percent of respondents said they would be more concerned with the emotional impact of ID theft than with the time and money issues. *Approximately 75 percent said they would worry about who had access to their information. *About 65 percent said that they would worry about being victimized repeatedly. *About 56 percent said that they would worry that the thief knew their home address.
All of these concerns are completely understandable, since people feel very close to their personal information. I