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As I travel one of the things that is constantly in the back of my mind is keeping track of my wallet. On a recent trip I misplaced it for a few minutes and got me thinking about what I would do if I really lost it or it was stolen. Luckily it wasn’t So I decided to make a list of everything in my wallet so if I lost it the information would be readily available to report my cards missing, etc.

To do this I created a word document with different sections:
Drivers License - I noted down my DL number.
Credit Cards - I noted down the account number, type and the number to call if lost or stolen (Usually on the back of the card).
Insurance Cards - Noted down the policy numbers and customer service number.
Other Valuables - Things like my key card for work, goofy middle school picture of my wife, etc.

Now if I loose my wallet, I can call through the list in a matter of no time to notify all the banks, etc. This only took me about 30 to 45 minutes to do both mine and my wifes.

Now if you are primarily a laptop user, I wouldn’t recommend saving this doc to your hard drive. If you laptop gets stolen you are then potentially exposed. Even if you are a desktop user, especially if connected to the Internet, you might think about putting this on some time of external media for safer keeping, after all this file does have your credit card numbers in it. I had an old flash drive sitting around collecting dust, so I used that. I can unplug it when I’m done to secure the information a little better.

I found these identity theft stats through a side track in another area of research, I thought they were interesting:

In 2007 the FTC logged around 800,000 identity theft cases, of these:
- 32% Involved Identity Theft
- 68% Involved other types of Identity Fraud

Of these 800,000 cases, 23% involved a credit card account. But cases where new unapproved accounts were opened outnumbered abuse of existing accounts by two to one.

Other popular ways that thieves are using other people’s identities:
- Opening utility accounts (18%)
- For employment (14%)
- Government benefits fraud (11%)
- Loan fraud (5%)
- Other forms of bank fraud (13%)

In addition to protecting your credit report there are some other ways that identity thieves can use your identity. For instance if someone got a hold of your social security number, they could use it to get a job, etc. The social security administration sends out automatic statements each year. The statement includes a record of your yearly earnings, so you can quickly review this and make sure it checks out.

According to the website, this is supposed to be automatic, but I think I remember getting maybe one of these in my life. If this is the case with you, it would probably be good to request a statement. You can request a social security statement here. Maybe after you request one once, and they get the right address for you, you might start getting it more regularly.

Time for the third step in my series on protecting your credit. If you want to see them all visit my identity theft category.

Step 3: Monitor your credit report.
One of the other great ways to protect yourself again identity theft is to monitor your credit report. There are services that you can signup for to do this. Some of them include other things like security alerts, access to your credit score, etc. However, there is also a free option.

The three credit reporting agencies are required by law to supply you with one free copy of your credit report each year (not necessarily your score, they make you pay for this). Simply visit http://www.annualcreditreport.com to claim it.

Important Time Saving Rant:
BTW, don’t be tricked by sites like freecreditreport.com, who try and make you think you are getting your “free credit report”, but are really signing you up for their “credit monitoring” service “Free Trial” which will automatically bill your card. If you are asked for billing information/credit card anywhere along the way, you are on the wrong site! Even though the site has no prices on it (at least I couldn’t find them, and I looked pretty hard), you will find your credit card charged unless you call to cancel. Freecreditreport.com is run by Experian, one of the three credit reporting agencies, that is legally required to give you a free report once a year. I have to admit, I saw the ads on TV and was duped at first, I cancelled and so far haven’t seen a charge. But don’t make the same mistake, it is a pain to call and cancel. I think this is a terrible way to conduct business!
End Rant

You will be asked to enter some person information and then you will be presented with a set of three checkboxes for which agency you want to pull your report from. I recommend only pulling from one agency, and pulling your report three times a year (again Outlook re-occurring tasks are great for this). Basically the reports are going to all be very similar, so you won’t gain much by pulling them all at one time.

Once you have selected an agency to get your report from, you will be redirected through to your report. PRINT A COPY. The agency is only obligated to provide it to you, not to store it so you can come back and look at it anytime you want. Then just review the report in detail, making sure you recognize all the accounts and such. If you see something that doesn’t click, dig into it right away.

I think the three steps I have outlined so far are some good basic steps you can take to help protect your identity. If you have any other ideas, submit a comment, or send me an email I would love to hear your ideas.

Time spent on this step: 30 minutes.
Time spent so far: 1 Hour, 15 minutes.

Step 2: As I said in my previous post, “Initial Fraud Alerts” are the next step in protecting your credit. This flags your accounts, so that if someone attempts to open a new account in your name extra identification will be required. If you are a person that likes to take advantage of those instant approval credit deals like “Buy now, no interest or payments until 2020″ this could make your life a little more difficult. When you place an initial fraud alert on your account you can also leave a phone number with them, which they should contact you on if someone tries to open a new account in your name. My research indicates that this does not negatively impact your credit scores in any way.

Each of the 3 credit reporting agencies maintains a phone number you can call to establish the fraud alert:

I set one up for myself and my wife, so I tried two of them so far (Experian and Transunion). I felt like Transunion’s version was a little easier to navigate, Experian kind of puts you through menu gymnastics to get it done.

You only have to notify one agency, they will notify the other two agencies on your behalf. An initial fraud alert is only good for 90 days, so you need to do this every 90 days, the upside, it takes only about 5 minutes per person, you could easily do it on your commute (another reason to like Transunion, they have speech recognition). I recommend adding an outlook recurring task to remind you to do this every 90 days.

Step 3: Monitor your credit report, after all it’s free.

Time spent on this step: 15 minutes.
Time spent so far: 45 minutes.

Identity theft is a reality. I have worked hard to keep my credit clean and don’t really want to loose it because of some looser who goes through my mail. I started looking at a few services like lifelock.com. Digging into it a little I found there are a lot of things you can do yourself, you just need to take the time to do it. If your don’t want to keep track of it, plunk down the $99 bucks for lifelock, but I wanted to do it for myself and my wife, so it was going to be $200. I figured I would try the DIY approach and see how much work it really is.

Step 1: The first place to start is to stop getting all the pre-approved credit card offers in the mail. A majority of these come from the credit reporting agencies, who sell your name to credit card companies. They have this nice little website that lets you opt out for 5 year, or permanently….its the law.

https://www.optoutprescreen.com

If you do a permanent opt-out be sure you PRINT OUT AND RETURN THE FORM. The link to do this is buried in the first paragraph. If you don’t print and mail it, they will set you up for a 5 year opt out instead of a permanent. If you do this at this one site, all of the agencies will be notified.

Step 2: Put “Fraud Alerts” on your reports with the leading credit agencies. More to come on that. I understand these have to be renewed once a quarter, but I bet it is easy, and outlook with make it easy to remember with a recurring task (also good for remembering important birthdays).

Time Spent So Far: 30 minutes.