Internet's first get-out-of-debt community - members

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 8:23 am

1. Guard you SSN

2. Monitor your credit report

3. Shred all of your old bank and credit card statements along with junk mail credit card offers.

4. Have your name removed from the three credit bureaus marketing list so you don't continue to get those 'pre approved' credit offers.

5. Add your name to the name deletion lists of direct marketing Associations Mail preference service and telephone preference service used by marketers.

6. Do not carry extra credit cards around, don't carry any more than what you'll need.

7. Copy all contents of your wallet on a photo copy machine--both sides.

8. Do not mail bills or checks from home. The reason being, your checks can be chemically washed clean of your signature and reused. It happens!!!

9. DO not have your SSN printed on your checks!

10. order your SSN statements once a year (your earnings and benefits)

11. examine your credit card statements very carefully to make sure everything is yours before paying.

12. cancel your unused credit cards

13. Never give your credit card or bank account number out over the phone. (unless you trust the business and you called them to initate this payment.

14. Subscribe to one of those credit monitoring systems that alerts you when someone has put in for credit with your name. (very helpful!!)

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 12:52 pm

Thanks Shirley, for this post! There are a few things on this list that I still need to do.

~Mary

Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 3:48 pm

Good post Shirley. This will definitely help lots of people to avoid ID theft. Good job Very Happy

Also I would like you to go through the steps that one should follow when the ID theft occurs-

http://www.debtconsolidationcare.com/forums/lost-wallet.html

Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 4:48 pm

Thanks Shirley, for sharing this valuable info with the community.
The above info is very much helpful for me. Thanks again. Smile

Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 5:18 pm

well great ALex, I'm glad I could help! Very Happy

Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 5:24 pm

Great info, thanks for sharing!

Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 5:33 pm

you're welcomes!!! shirley

Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 6:25 pm

I wish we would have had known this in July. We wouldn't be in the mess we are in today. We never would have gotten into the payday loans and would have kept up payments on our credit cards. Thank you very much Shirley. Hopefully this will make more people aware.

Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 6:10 pm

Excellent ideas, Shirley! Where I work now, I sell an addition service for American Express cards that ehlps to reimburse the costs of correcting identity theft. It helps to reimburse legal fees, lost wages for having to take time off from work to pursue that matter, and it reimburses fraudulent cash ATM withdrawals. Do any of you carry American Express?

Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 11:06 pm

Not yet Ari, but I am working on it! Gotta get that score up first Wink

~Mary

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 6:58 pm

Likewide, I though my score was good enough for American Express, then I saw for myself that having student loans in deferment was casting a pall over it.

Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 3:37 pm

We will be there one day soon Smile

~Mary

Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 4:40 pm

See! Even the ex-collector isn't perfect!! Very Happy

Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 7:04 pm

Another good idea is to actually keep your billing statements in a little file cabinet. If they never leave the house, how can anyone scavenge off of them? Plus, they come in handy when there is something to dispute.

Paper shredders are a good idea, but they are not entirely foolproof. Any desperate crook with a lot of scotch tape and time on his/her hands can spend all night puzzle-piecing together all the shredded documents, and then...victory!

Posted: Fri May 05, 2006 6:33 pm

That was very good information provided Shirley. At my place of business (I handle payroll for several companies)a courier truck was stolen and on the truck it had several payroll packages for our clients. These packages include ss #'s,bank acct numbers, company check information-- the whole nine. It is very scary of what can be done with this information. Although the courier is a third party courier, our customers still look at us to blame for this.

Debt and Credit Management	Other financial topics
Debt Consolidation, Management and Settlement Dealing with Creditors and Collection Agencies Get-out-of payday loan help Creditors and collection agency address book Credit Repair, credit score and credit reports Financial education through videos	Additional income, investment, shopping & budgeting Banking including help on chexsystems Identity theft - scams, security and training Getting a Loan and choosing a good lender Dealing with Student Loans US Tax system and impact on debt
Community success stories	Miscellaneous - Hangout forums
Winning stories with debtcc community Stories: How I accumulated debts	Expert articles - Community knowledge bank Debtcc Complaint center Pub, feedback and announcements Funny Videos - Hey you worked a lot, now laugh and relax

*Name:
*Email:
*Phone:
*Zip:
Debt

	* denotes required field

Internet's first get-out-of-debt community - members

Ways to avoid identity theft

Members Area

Free Debt Counseling

Ask the community

Question of the week

Useful Links

Highlighted Topics

Recent Blog Post