"News that's not known, or not known enough."
Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion.
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"News that's not known, or not known enough." Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion. |
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To defend against identity theft and various scams involving credit, there are steps that a reasonable person can take which are not very expensive: 1. Sign up for credit monitoring and identity theft insurance. This is free with your AIG auto insurance, and other corporations offer it as a free benefit if you are a customer. Or you can buy it separately for about $10 a month. Receiving a heads-up alert within 24 hours of someone pulling a fraud in your name is a valuable service. A good thing. 2. The big 3 credit bureaus are Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion (they offer credit monitoring services too.) You can call, say, Equifax, on an 800 number and put a "fraud alert" on your credit files at the big 3 3. Once you've done #1 and #2 the next big step is to put a "security freeze" on your credit files at the big 3. This option is available in most, but not all states. It costs about $10 for each credit bureau, plus the fee for sending a certified letter. The security freeze prevents changes to your credit files, meaning that new accounts cannot be opened in your name by companies that are members of these credit networks. To temporarily or permanently remove the security freeze you need to send another certified letter and another $10, so that means planning ahead before you go buy a new car or try to rent an apartment, etc. The security freeze also prevent the big 3 from distributing your credit file data except in certain cases, like to the government, to companies you already have a credit file with, etc. NOTE: Obviously, before doing the security freeze make sure your affairs are squared away and that you don't need to immediately unfreeze! 4. Once you have installed a security freeze on your data at the big 3 credit bureaus, the final step is to call 1-888-5OPTOUT. That will prevent the big 3 from distributing your credit data to companies that want to offer you pre-approved credit cards and stuff like that. For some reason, these companies still receive your data from the big 3 even if you have put a security freeze on your data, so you need to opt out. 5. Once you've completed #1 - #4 you still aren't safe from scam artists. For example, it is still possible for someone to raid a checking account electronically, they just need to know the account number! So in general it is best to always pay with a credit card or with cash. I recommend paying for everything with cash. When you need to use an ATM go to your own bank's ATM so that your data is shipped the fewest number of places. It's also a good idea to use a P.O. box or a private mail box to prevent mail theft and fake mail forwarding. 6. At this point, your biggest security risk may be your computer. If it is connected to the internet it is NOT SECURE. So never input information you want to keep secret. For maximum security don't use your computer to do e-commerce or e-banking, or anything like that, and if you absolutely must do so, then be aware that you are taking a risk and make sure that your firewall, anti-virus, OS patches, etc. are up to date and solid. This leaves about 3,000 other security risks in a typical person's life. You'll have to look into your own situation and see what the odds are, what are the serious risks, and what sorts of "insurance" or hedges you can take out that make sense from a cost-benefit standpoint. Consider worst case scenarios and then see if there is something you can do to improve the outcomes (i.e., maybe something does happen but instead of a worst-case outcome it is only a disaster, or maybe just a temporary horror show.) I think it is very important to try to get as squared away as possible, and to do this as soon as convenient, without fooling around. The security situation out there is getting worse every day! Our computer/data networks are like Swiss cheese to hackers, and the corporations and government(s) appear to be incompetent, corrupt bunglers with evil intent. This means you are on your own: a plump, tasty sheep surrounded by wolves, some wearing badges. © by the author.
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