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January 15, 2008
Identity Theft Can Happen to Anyone
Identity theft can happen to even the savviest of financial people. Identity theft is not a problem isolated to average people.
Recently, Nancy Trejos, a personal finance columnist with the Washington Post was a victim. You would think that a financial columnist with a major newspaper would never be a victim of identity theft, but it happened.
A thief managed to get Nancy’s Bank of America debt card number and used it to make a purchase of over $800 of shoes. The thief used her debit card to make an online purchase and arranged for an in-store pickup of the merchandise.
Fortunately for Nancy, the store clerk became concerned when the person picking up the shoes could not produce the debit card used to make the purchase.
This brings up the point that you should NEVER leave your debit receipts with clerks at stores to throw in the garbage. Every receipt from every transaction must be destroyed or securely stored, perhaps in a safe at home, to prevent identity thieves from acquiring your personal information.
Identity theft is a massive problem that is only getting worse so you must be vigilant at all times and be sure to take every precaution to ensure nobody can get any personally identity information about your finances.
You must be wary at all times as identity theft happens in many forms, such as stolen debit card information to registering credit, loans and utility services such as cell phones in your name.
To prevent your debit card information from being stolen remember to shred all receipts and to protect yourself from having id thieves register credit cards or loans in your name I strongly recommend that you considering enrolling in an identity theft monitoring program to ensure that your name is protected from this horrible crime.
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