Identity Theft 3 D’s: Deter

March 12, 2008

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They say that the best defense is a good offense, and it holds true here: the best way to fight identity theft is to prevent it from happening in the first place.

Here are some ways to prevent identity theft:

Watch Your Garbage

Shred, shred, and shred again.  The first thing you need is a good cross-cut shredder.  The ribbon ones aren’t going to cut it. You can pick up a cross-cut shredder at any office supply store or Costco.

You want to shred credit card receipts, pre-approved credit card applications, insurance and medical stuff, any statements, and anything else that has your personal information.  For me, I am slightly paranoid so I shred anything that even has my name on it.

Control Your Mail

Lets be honest, those pre-approved credit offers provide way more risk than benefit.  Call 1-888-5-OPT-OUT (1-888-567-8688) and request that you don’t receive them anymore.  If you sign up for an identity theft protection service like LifeLock or TrustedID they will do this for you, otherwise you can do it yourself

When you are mailing something out, take it right to the post office, preferably inside.

Control Your Social Security Number

Your SSN should be guarded at all times. Don’t carry the card around all the time.  It’s too high risk.

If you have your SSN on your driver’s license, request to change it.

Whenever someone asks you for your Social Security Number, the first thing you should ask is “why?”.  In some cases it’s legit such as an employer or for a credit check, but always ask “why?” “how will you protect it?”, and “what happens if I don’t give it?”. If they don’t have satisfactory answers to those questions, prepare to walk.

Use Secure Storage

Keep your information stored in a secure, locked place.  This includes tax information, statements, etc.  Yes, you even need to protect it from roommates and sometimes even family members.

At work, keep any administrative type forms secure from your co-workers and keep your wallet and purse locked up if at all possible.

Ask your employer and other relevant places (doctor’s office etc) what they do with confidential information and how they dispose of it.

Practice Smart Computing

Use a firewall, antivirus, and anti-spyware software to help protect your computer against hackers. Avoid clicking on links that you don’t know the source.  For example, its very unlikely that your bank or Paypal are going to send you an email requesting that you “verify information” unless you have requested that to occur.

Use strong passwords with a combination of letters, numbers, and if possible symbols.  Try not to use the same password everywhere.

Don’t be -ished

Social engineering is when someone tries to get information out of you by pretending to be something they are not and gaining trust.

This can take many forms including phishing (trying to get information online by creating, say, a fake bank website) and vishing (calling you up on the phone trying to get your cc or bank information).

Sometimes these scams are very very elaborate, but when in doubt you should be the one initiating the contact, not the “bank” or “IRS”.

Lock Down Your Credit

One strong way to protect yourself is a credit freeze.  What this does is lock down your credit report so that no one can have access to it unless you specifically unfreeze your report.  There are often fees associated with setting, unlocking, and relocking the freeze.  Here is a comparison between credit monitoring vs fraud alerts vs credit freeze.

A credit freeze can be set by you at all three credit bureaus, or it can be done as part of a package like TrustedID.

These have been some tips to prevent identity theft and to deter it altogether.  Tomorrow we’ll be going through how to detect it.

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Posted in Identity Theft, Identity Theft Prevention, LifeLock, TrustedID