Slashdot Mirror
Identity Theft Countermeasures?
gbell asks: "Stories about reconstructing shredded documents and horrific tales of rampant identity theft (at least 750K victims/year) have me scared and wondering if I'm being careful enough. What are savvy Slashdot readers doing to protect their financial identity? I already have fraud alerts on my credit reports, which make sure I'm contacted if any requests for additional credit happen. I've called 800-5-OPT-OUT and stopped all the credit card offers. I use unique passwords on all of my online financial accounts. I shred and pulp-ify all documents. I order periodic copies of my credit reports (although I'm irked that I have to pay for them - they're only free if you've been recently denied credit). Is there anything else I should be doing? People spend years sorting out ID theft, and I'm wondering when credit-abusers will start crying 'fraud' just to get out of debt... making things even harder for the true victims. Cops don't have time to do anything, even if you find the perp yourself. The situation looks like it's going to get much worse, and I'm willing to take steps now to increase my security at the cost of convenience. Suggestions?"
when you get a receipt, tear out your credit card number and tear it into smaller pieces. People can pick them out of the trash. I'm always careful to do this, many places put your number on your receipt.
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
If you live in one of the following states you are entitled to one free credit report/year:
Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, Vermont.
As far as getting one when you are denied credit, all it really takes is an inquiry. The credit agency doesn't know if the credit card, loan office, etc. approved or denied you. So if you've applied for anything recently you can call up and get a free report.
Call these numbers and follow the prompts for having been denied credit:
Experian 800.353.0809
Equifax 888.567.8688
TransUnion 800.680.7293
This aggrivates me to no end. The US Army requires its soldiers to put their SSNs on almost every official peice of paperwork relating to them. Home addresses are only a 201 file away. I'm pretty sure that identity theft is rampant in the US military. Officers and high-ranking NCOs are probably even more vulnerable because of their higher salaries. I wish we would abandon SSNs for a military-only serial number.
Looking at one of their reports, I believe the quote was "The FTC's identity theft Web site had received more than 699,000 hits since it was launched in February 2000" that spawned that number.... The actual report I expect it's from is here, and the article from the story misquoted it - the actual number of complaints to the FTC via their hotline for 2001 was over (but probably around) 86,000.
Several websites seem to use the larger number, but most of them are selling something and just playing "woopsie" with the numbers.
At 86,000, that puts it more at the level of arson. So I'll spend just about as much effort avoiding it - none outside of common sense. However, my credit cards do have insurance, just like I have insurance on my apartment and belongings. And I don't post my SS# to usenet.
What I encounter far more often is the stupid debt collection agencies sending me bills that have nothing to do with me, where the name is slightly different and the SS# is nowhere near the same - I don't think those are someone trying to steal my identity. Rather, I think it's the debt collectors getting desperate to find someone and spamming any name that's even close hoping that either they'll find him, or someone else will pay the bill without realizing it isn't them.
Oh - by the way, the "using seperate random passwords for important online accounts" thing.... I count that as common sense. Add in - not logging into bank or brokerage services from untrusted computers, especially at Kinko's.
I write code.
Shredding documents in particular is probably completely unnecessary
One of my best friends is a Secret Service agent. If you heard the stories he tells, you would not say this.
how about an example? On one fraud case he was on when they busted into the criminals house, they found piles of Checks, Credit card and utility statements. Most smelling of trash. They had conned over 200K using this information. If you think that just because the crooks were caught, it was skippy fun time for the victims you are quite wrong. Regardless of the circumstances one victim was evicted from their house, because of a bounced rent check (the thieves took the money) and then had a very hard time finding another place because of the damage the crooks had done to their credit report.
If I were you I would get a LOT more paranoid. On second thought don't. That way I only have to outrun you....(see above)
Americans could not be more self absorbed if they were made of equal parts water and paper towel. -Dennis Miller
I am a victim of identity theft, and it is hell dealing with the fallout of it. Someone opened store credit accounts in my name, ran up huge charges, and never paid them. It doesn't take an AFDB to be worried about this. It happens, and it's not easy to fix.
I have been round and round with the companies that were scammed with my identity. I am just now learning how to make sure my credit reports are annotated that the bad accounts are from identity theft. The bad info stays on the accounts, which as far as scoring goes, is just as bad if they weren't annotated.
The difficult part in dealing with this is you can't prove a negative. The companies love to say "prove you didn't open the account." There is no protection for this, and plans I've had for home ownership are ruined, at least for the past couple years, thanks to identity theft.
To those of you saying the poster needs an AFDB, think about what you'd do if you found false information, using your SSN, on your credit report tomorrow. That is what has happened to me.
What really annoys me about this are the health insurance companies. Seems like they all use you SSN as ID, boldly printed on your membership card. (Aetna urged me to "always keep it with you", or something to that effect -- yeah, right.) A BCBS rep told me over a year ago they were phasing them out, in part due to a California law requiring the change. I hope they'll all make the move real soon...
Is this a service offered by your state or the credit reporting agencies? Do you have to pay for this?
This is not a state service. You must contact the three (redundant) credit report agencies: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Tell them to put an alert on your credit report requiring creditors to contact you via telephone for approval before issuing credit in your name.
This alert is free and has the nice side effect of eliminating those unwanted, pre-approved credit cards in the mail. Creditors can't mail you pre-approved credit cards if they didn't call you for permission first! Those pre-approved credit cards are easily stolen and used to buy stuff in your name with credit accounts you never even knew you had!
Also, if you tell Equifax, Experian, or TransUnion you your wallet or mail was stolen, they will give you a free copy of your credit report (once per year). They don't verify this, but they might get suspicious if your wallet is stolen every January. I get my three credit reports (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) every year to make sure my identity theft problem does not come back to haunt me. You must check all three credit reports because they contain different and often incorrect information about your credit accounts.
cpeterso
A decent crosscut shredder is now $30 at Target, and yes you do want to sweat things that much, especially in urban areas. Otherwise, any dumpster-diving moron can get ahold of your vital financial information.
Got good credit? Do you get those credit card offers in the mail? Or does your dipshit credit card company send you 'free' checks to use to pay off other balances? You may be fucked if you're just throwing them out unopened and unmolested.
Get a crosscut shredder. Shred everything customized with your name, SSN or credit card numbers before throwing it out. This is really important. The US post office usually does a decent job of protecting mail en route (usually...), but once it's in your hands it's your responsibility.