identity theft *READ PLEASE

[Guest Lester Weevils]

1. Be religous about opening your bank statements and credit card statements. You're protected by federal law against losses so long as you notify within a certain period of time.

2. Check your credit several times a year. You're entitled to one free report per year from each of the three major bureaus. Go to annualcreditreport.com (not freecreditreport.com like on the commercials) and access one every few months.

3. Consider putting a credit freeze on your accounts with the bureaus. It's free to place one, there's a small fee to remove it. With this, no one can access your credit without you personally removing the freeze.

[snip]

8. Create a 'burn file" for yourself. Take the contents of your wallet and dump it out on a copier once a year or so. Copy front and back of cards. Give it to someone you trust to secure. This way, if you get compromised by the loss or theft of your wallet, it's a phone call and a two minute process to have that person burn your identity. You can cancel the cards quickly instead of fumbling around to gather information while someone is using your card at Best Buy. Criminals these days are applying JIT management principles to identity theft. You have to act fast - because they sure are.

Hope this helps.

Lots of folks have good ideas on this thread. I especially like MacGyver's list. Great to get professional advice fer free!

1-- Every transaction is examined as it is entered into quicken. Quicken internet is disabled and online features never used. I like quicken but it got "good enough" years ago. Tax return backups are encrypted. Quicken accounts have names and dollar amounts but no identifying info. If somebody steals the quicken files then they don't get account numbers and passwords.

Dunno nothin. Ain't advising. Just reporting. Perhaps over-paranoid-- Regardless of encryption, passwords and privacy statements-- I wanna keep data local. Ain't none of quicken's bidness. Each online financial session is a (low-risk) hack target. Risk exposure would track frequency of use. Admittedly information is stolen from mailboxes but at least east european hackers can't pilfer my front yard mailbox.

Non-paper financial data is on backup usb sticks and a single MacBook computer. Bluetooth and wireless disabled. Un-plugged from ethernet. That puter is never used for recreation. Mainly quicken, turbotax and occasional software testing. For rare online financial-- Connect ethernet, download OS and antivirus updates, reboot, quickly do the financial and sign off. Close the browser and unplug ethernet. The browser deletes temp files and cookies on each exit. Browser conveniences and helpers are mostly disabled. For the ultimate in online safety, always browse with a rabbits foot in yer pocket and a tinfoil hat on yer head. A garlic necklace is optional but highly recommended.

2&3-- From the LifeLock user reports, the service sounds better than would have expected. Seems spooky hiring a company to snoop my bidness. Maybe its no big deal.

Have used Transunion TrueCredit many years, Not expensive. They send email alerts on all activity from the three credit agencies. Three-agency credit reports are "free". Apparently even if you too frequently pull yer own credit report then it can eventually ding yer credit rating "too many inquiries".

Credit report freeze is enabled. TrueCredit doesn't snoop arrest records and such. Perhaps LifeLock is a better bargain because it does more stuff. OTOH TrueCredit knows nothing of my bidness that they wouldn't know anyway. TrueCredit ain't actively snooping. My bidness ain't the least bit interesting but it is the principle of the thing.

8-- Been meaning to update a burn list.. A list of account nums, passwords, phone numbers, addresses, where bodies are buried (joking)-- Also useful for wife or daughter should I get hit by a truck or squashed by a meteor.

After mom died in her sleep-- She had been long-term sick. It was not unexpected but I didn't get a chance to verify important details. "Tell me again about your burial plot in the old home town? Exactly where do you keep the will anyway?"

She told me that stuff for years but I couldn't recall details. Dug thru filing cabinets and storage boxes. Full to the brim with decades of canceled checks, utility bills and small appliance manuals. Stuffed with long-expired warranties and tax returns. Giant boxes of lawyer fodder documenting decades of epic alimony war with dad. Just to find the freaking will and the funeral home address. A burn list sitting on her desk would have been great.

OTOH an easy to find list would be a gift from on high for an identity thief. Especially if a thief sneaks cellphone pictures and you don't even know it's been compromised. Perhaps hide the list in a secret location so that wife would have to turn the house upside down to find it anyway! I could tell her where it is hidden, but wives never listen to husbands!

Edited March 10, 2012 by Lester Weevils