Protecting Your Data & Yourself in this New Digital Age

Like many of you, I have been a victim of identity theft, credit card fraud & suspicious phone calls fishing for my personal information. Days, I would even venture weeks of my life have been spent on those very pleasant 1-800 number phone calls, in person bank visits & filing of fraud reports. These digital thieves want your personal information and will use all manners of creativity to obtain and utilize it.

Through my personal trials and observations of client experiences I have collected a solid list of measures to protect yourself and our data.

Contact each of the three credit reporting agencies to freeze your credit. This will disallow anyone from applying for credit cards, mortgages & loans in your name. You will need to unfreeze at least one to apply for a car loan or mortgage, but it is well worth the hassle for your protection. Even if the agency says they will report to the other two agencies I have found that this doesn’t always happen, contact all three individually.

TransUnion (800) 916-8800

Experian (888) 397-3742

Equifax (888) 548-7878

If you haven’t pulled the trigger on online access yet, now is the time. You should be reviewing your accounts at minimum weekly for unusual charges. Reviewing your paper statement monthly is no longer enough. Most banks will allow you to mark a charge as unusual/fraudulent and then send to their fraud department for monitoring. We recommend closing any account that has had fraudulent charges.

Change passwords for all financial & email accounts frequently and do not use the same one for every account. As much as hassle this is, digital thieves can use creative ways to obtain your password and you do not want them to immediately have access to all your log ins. We recommend deleting any old email addresses that are no longer in use. Many times, hackers have scrolled your email history for personal information to use against you.

A good secure application you can use on your phone to store all your passwords is called Keeper. This app uses encryption and face technology to secure your passwords and has additional for pay security features.

Your information is being stolen in person as well. Cover your cards when you use them at the ATM, gas station and in public places. Hide your pin number when typing it into machines. Be mindful of when you are flying on an airplane and using your laptop in public places.

Have a reliable security system in your home & workplace and secure your mailbox for personal information. It is common to have a home or office broken into and personal information stolen, sold, and utilized for identity theft and financial fraud.

If you have been subject to fraud or identity theft you can place fraud alerts on your credit. The credit agencies will inform any inquiries to your report of the fraud alert and banks/loan institutions are required to contact you with any inquiry. As an extra measure of safety, you can add credit monitoring the credit agencies to get emails when any credit changes occur.

Make sure to go to each credit reporting website individually and review your credit report annually.

As we progress further into this digital age, our information will continue to become increasingly vulnerable. Please take these initial steps to begin to protect yourself and your financial information.

As always, please contact me with any questions or for further discussion on any of the steps above. I would love to help you through the process.

Take a few deep breaths, we will get through this.

Take care & happy early fall,

Ali