identity theft crisis

[JBinKC]

What are the precautions you are taking regarding this subject and how far have you gone to secure your identity. I thought I was thorough but now I have second thoughts about it.

I use a crosscut shredder for almost any bill, statement or anything that contains my SSN, have an unpublished number but what really scares me is the lax secuirity banks credit card providers are displaying lately with all of the numbers being hacked into - makes me wonder if the benefits of using credit out weighs the potential risks.

[PrincessPerky]

I got alot of the stuff for offeres of credit to stop comming, I read that one of the ways they steal your ID is to apply for a card that the company offered you, only with a different address, so you never see the bill.

[jmjj215]

Does identity theft - or more specifically - credit card fraud, have heavier implications than just the fact that someone ruins your credit? I mean, the whole "Net" plot (w/ Sandra Bullock a while back) doesn't seem to really be an issue. It's more that someone will get a CC in your name and charge it up, and you're then on the hook (though you're really not, it's a huge pain anyway). What are the other side effects of having that happen to you besides a damaged/ruined credit score?

[jhd815]

I actually wrote an ebook titled "IDENTITY THEFT - How To Avoid Becoming the Next Victim!". It's now in it's second edition and available for free to anyone who wants it.

Since we're not supposed to blatantly "advertise" here on this forum, and I don't want to break those rules, you can email me at jimdim815@aol.com for details.

[JBinKC]

What good is all the safeguards you can control when the credit card companies themselves fail to perform the fiduciary duty of protecting your identity what can you do about that?

[jhd815]

Unfortunately nothing will happen (or very little) as long as the credit card companies (i.e. banks) have high paid lobbyists courting our legislative leaders so that they can get laws passed that benefit the banks more so than the consumer (the new personal bankruptcy law comes to mind).

Some states have now enacted laws that require credit card companies to alert their customers whenever a breach in security has occured that may affect their account holders. Hard to believe that they weren't or aren't required to do this to begin with.

You may also notice that a majority of the announcements regarding the lack of security of consumer data are released on late Friday afternoons.

Also, even if you stopped using your credit cards you would still have a credit report or profile that someone could acces with just a few key pieces of personal information.

Now that the majority of US consumers have free access to their credit reports annually, you can monitor your credit reports more closely. I check my credit reports quarterly (through a paid service which I'll be getting rid of now) but also use the www.annualcreditreport.com site to check my credit reports every 4 months (I check one major CRA report every 4 months to keep a closer eye on my credit reports).

Some consumers are even going the route of "freezing" their credit reports so that no one has access to them without prior permission from the account holder.