Part of personal financial fitness and growing better credit scores is protecting your information and practicing identity theft prevention.  Yes, our information is already out there, probably more than we realize.  However, there are things you can do to reduce your risk of identity theft.

First, don't give your info out to everybody that asks for it.  The pizza place or video rental probably doesn't need your mother's maiden name, your birthday and shoe size. 

Second, be smart and careful with the items that have your personal information on them. Don't carry your Social Security card; don't carry every single one of your credit cards; only take the checkbook when you know you'll be writing a check.  The Identity Theft Resource Center has a great quiz that checks your risk of identity theft and highlights steps you can take for prevention.  Their Consumer Risk Test has excellent information about your info and the businesses you do business with.

Simply following some Identity Theft Prevention Tips reduces your risk.  We talk to so many people who didn't think it would happen to them.  Make sure that you do all you can to protect your information and your good credit.

Complete Credit Services specializes in credit report correction and credit education for consumers.  If you are the victim of identity theft and your credit report has fraudulent information on it, our consulting services can be of assistance.  Contact us today for more information.

According to ITRC, only 2.4% of the 2008 breaches had encryption and only 8.5% of them had password protection.  Obviously, businesses and government have a long way to go to protect sensitive consumer information.

That leaves us, as consumers, to try and protect our information as much as possible.  It is important because inaccurate and fraudulent information on your credit report can lead to lower credit scores. 

WHAT TO DO

Include Credit Monitoring as part of your regular Financial Fitness routine.  Look on your credit  report for accounts, names and addresses that you don’t recognize.  Report the errors to ALL THREE credit bureaus, even if you only looked at one report.  You should receive updated credit reports from all three in response to your letter.

Be proactive with Identity Theft Prevention.  This includes limiting the number of times you give out your Social Security number and regularly shredding all financial and personal statements that are going into the trash.

Take the Identity Theft Quiz provided by ITRC and start using the additional preventative measures that they list.

Respond quickly to any data breach letters you may receive in the mail and follow the instructions completely.  They usually include credit report monitoring which gives an opportunity to check immediately, and into the future, for signs of fraudulent activity.  Be sure to keep copies of everything, especially the initial letter about the breach, as they may be important tools to remove inaccurate accounts from your credit reports in the future.

Be proactive with the businesses your frequently use.  Take the ITRC’s Consumer Risk Test to the places you do business with to find out how much they are doing to protect your personal information.

Better credit scores are part of a good Financial Fitness program and protecting yourself from identity thieves is imperative.  Your information is out there; doing as much as you can to protect it is just plain smart.

WHY IT MATTERS
Companies that you have credit accounts with share your information with other divisions of their company.  Not too surprising.  BUT they also share or sell your personal information to other companies owned by their parent company AND to outside, third-party companies that have no affiliation with them what-so-ever.  With the increasing rate of corporate data breaches, having your information shared or sold to an untold number of companies puts you at further risk for identity theft.

WHAT TO DO
Look through every Privacy Notice you receive to locate the section with instructions to OPT OUT.  You can do this rather quickly either online or with a toll-free phone call (some companies require their form to be mailed in).  Be sure to do the complete OPT OUT that prohibits the company from sharing or selling your information with any other companies, affiliated or third party.  You should only need to do this once for the entire time that you have the account.

You can also request a complete OPT OUT when you first open a loan or credit account to be sure that your personal information is not distributed outside of the specific company you are choosing to do business with.

For more information, see Identity Theft Prevention Tips.  You can also search the articles on our site under Identity Theft.

The Arizona Daily Star is reporting that an Arizona Department of Economic Security hard-drive containing personal and sensitive information for a number of Arizona children was stolen from a storage unit in Phoenix.  Several other storage units, not belonging to DES, were also broken into, so it does not appear that the DES unit was specifically targeted.

The back-up hard drive contained names, addresses, phone numbers and social security numbers for families referred to the Arizona Early Intervention Program over the past several years, according to DES spokeswoman, Vicki Gaubeca.  It also included insurance information and info about the children’s disability.   The Arizona Early Intervention Program is a statewide system of supports and services for families of children — ages 0 to 3 — with disabilities or developmental delays.

Letters were sent on October 24th to the families of 40,000 children across the state as a precaution even though DES officials say there is no reason to believe that any of the data has been compromised as the hard drive is password protected.

If you believe your information may be compromised, contact all three of the credit bureaus to request a fraud alert be placed on your credit file. 

Equifax: 1-800-525-6285; P.O. Box 740241, Atlanta, GA 30374-0241
Experian: 1-888-EXPERIAN (397-3742); P.O. Box 9532, Allen, TX 75013
TransUnion: 1-800-680-7289; Fraud Victim Assistance Division, P.O. Box 6790, Fullerton, CA 92834-6790

When you receive the letter from DES, follow the credit monitoring instructions provided in it.  Take advantage of all the resources that are made available to you.   Get the free credit reports as often as you can to check for signs of identity theft.  These signs could include unknown accounts that are recently opened, balances on your existing accounts that you didn’t charge, collection accounts for things you never had and addresses for places you have never lived in. 

Be sure to keep copies of all correspondence that you send and receive regarding this matter, including credit reports that are accurate.  The information you save now can be helpful in the future in the event you need to deal with erroneous credit reporting due to identity theft issues.

For more information on Identity Theft prevention, click here.

Privacy Rights Clearinghouse also reported today that hundreds of private and personal information files, including Social Security numbers, were thrown out in the trash at San Antonio, Texas, Child Protective Services.

Cost Plus World Market reported last month that customer credit and debit card information was stolen from stores in California and Arizona in February, March and April of 2008.

On August 1, 2008, the FBI arrested a former employee of Countrywide Financial Corporation and another man for allegedly stealing and selling personal information, including Social Security numbers, of over 2 million people in 2006, 2007 and 2008.

All of these come after federal prosecutors disclosed last week that more than 40 million credit card numbers had been swiped by computer hackers.  This is the largest known consumer data security breach to date.

These credit card numbers came from nine different stores, listed here with possible dates of the breaches:
Barnes and Noble, Inc.
BJ’s Wholesale Club
Boston Market Corporation – 2004
Dave and Buster’s Inc.
DSW Inc.
Forever 21 Inc. – 2008
Office Max Inc. – 2004 and 2005
Sports Authority Inc.
TJX Companies – 2003, 2005 and 2006

The U.S. government charged eleven men in five countries with stealing the credit card numbers from 2003 to 2008.  Only four of the companies identified had disclosed to customers that their information was at risk due to a security breach.  Those four companies are:
BJ’s Wholesale Club Inc.
Dave and Buster’s Inc.
DSW Inc.
TJX Companies

You probably recognize some of these companies as places you shop or have shopped in the past several years.  And, like most people nowadays, you probably use your debit and credit cards regularly to pay for your purchases.  So what do you do now?

1) Call the fraud departments of the credit bureaus to place a Fraud Alert on your account.  Contact ALL THREE directly to be sure that it is placed immediately.   

Equifax: 1-800-525-6285; P.O. Box 740241, Atlanta, GA 30374-0241
Experian: 1-888-EXPERIAN (397-3742); P.O. Box 9532, Allen, TX 75013
TransUnion: 1-800-680-7289; Fraud Victim Assistance Division, P.O. Box 6790, Fullerton, CA 92834-6790

2)  Request the free credit report provided by the Fraud Alert; this will give you a baseline to which to compare future credit reports in the event of identity theft.

4) Start carrying some cash.  Yes, really.  Identity thieves, whether outside hackers or inside employees, cannot mess with your bank accounts and credit cards when you pay for cash.  No personal information can be swiped, no account numbers can be stolen, no phony, expired cards can be given back, when you pay cash.  And you’ll spend no time chasing down proof of fraudulent activity to clear up your credit reports and scores.

If you have errors on your credit reports due to identity theft, contact us for a Credit Report Review.  We have many years experience helping people just like you get the incorrect items off their credit and out of their lives.