By Frank W. Abagnale


Identity thieves rob more than 500,000 Americans every year. Credit can be damaged, and fixing it can cost you hundreds of dollars and take hundreds of hours of your time. These steps will help you reduce your risk of identity theft.

1. Guard your Social Security number. It is the key to your credit report and banking accounts and is the prime target of criminals.

2. Monitor your credit report. It contains your SSN, present and prior employers, a listing of all account numbers, including those that have been closed, and your overall credit score. After applying for a loan, credit card, rental or anything else that requires a credit report, request that your SSN on the application be truncated or completely obliterated and your original credit report be shredded before your eyes or returned to you once a decision has been made. A lender or rental manager needs to retain only your name and credit score to justify a decision.

3. Shred all old bank and credit statements and "junk mail" credit card offers before trashing them. Use a crosscut shredder. Crosscut shredders cost more than regular shredders but are superior.

4. Remove your name from the marketing lists of the three credit reporting bureaus to reduce the number of pre-approved credit offers you receive.

5. Add your name to the name-deletion lists of the Direct Marketing Association's Mail Preference Service and Telephone Preference Service used by banks and other marketers.

6. Do not carry extra credit cards or other important identity documents except when needed.

7. Place the contents of your wallet on a photocopy machine. Copy both sides of your license and credit cards so you have all the account numbers, expiration dates and phone numbers if your wallet or purse is stolen.

8. Do not mail bill payments and checks from home. They can be stolen from your mailbox and washed clean in chemicals. Take them to the post office.

9. Do not print your Social Security number on your checks.

10. Order your Social Security Earnings and Benefits statement once a year to check for fraud.

11. Examine the charges on your credit card statements before paying them.

12. Cancel unused credit card accounts.

13. Never give your credit card number or personal information over the phone unless you have initiated the call and trust that business.

14. Subscribe to a credit report monitoring service that will notify you whenever someone applies for credit in your name.

Frank W. Abagnale is one of the world's most respected authorities on the subjects of forgery, embezzlement and secure documents. For more than 25 years he has lectured to and consulted with hundreds of financial institutions, corporations and government agencies around the world.

Another tip:

In order to keep your signature from being erased or smeared due to multiple uses put a piece of tape over your signature. This will keep it still visible without creating a problem when swiping.

these are good tips.....thanks Kinda off topic...but I love those Citi Bank Identity theft commericals.

Mach said:

It's probably sufficient to mail them from a blue mailbox on the street, a mail chute in an office building, or any other mailbox where people can't just reach in and take the outgoing mail. What you don't want to do is put them in a suburban-style curb mailbox (i.e., the kind with no security and a red flag to indicate outgoing mail is waiting).



And if there are any states left that still put Social Security numbers on driver's licenses and state ID cards, ask if the SSN can be left off. Indiana offers (or used to offer) this choice.



I'm going to disagree here. First, unauthorized use of a credit card account is a pretty minor form of "identity theft." The crook can't use the card to open other accounts, take out a loan, get ID in your name, etc. It happened to me once--some European fraud ring spent about $4,500 on books or other publications (?!?!) with my MasterCard number--and I didn't have to pay a dime. I just signed an affidavit stating that I didn't authorize the charges. (Ultimately the merchant in Germany got stuck with the bill for not following MasterCard polices re telephone and mail order purchases.)

Second, when the credit bureaus calculate your credit score, it helps to have accounts that have been open for a long time. For this reason, I'll probably never cancel my first two credit cards, which I've had for nine years.

Third, when applying for credit, lenders look at the ratio of how much credit you've used to how much credit you have available. If you cancel an unused Visa with a $10,000 limit, your ratio just went up (unless you have no credit card debt whatsoever), which is not good.

I have various "unused" credit cards that I use once or twice a year so that the banks don't take it upon themselves to cancel the accounts. I've also found that they tend to offer something nice, like a special deal on balance transfers or a promotional interest rate, if you don't use the card for a while.

Having bad credit is a plus too. They can't do shit with it or buy anything with it!

ShySlantedEye1 said:

ShySlantedEye1 said:

These days they can... they'll just pay sky-high interest. (Well, actually, they won't, since financial criminals tend not to pay the resulting bills, but I digress.)

I've got excellent credit, but I remember once receiving a solicitation in the mail for a Visa card with an APR of something like 26.9% (!). Whatever state it came from must not have usury (loansharking) laws.