I think we have all spent time worrying about identity theft. Everyday we are bombarded by advertisements warning us of how our lives are unprotected; we encounter fraud on our emails, and our social accounts. Plus we even receive fraudulent phone calls. It’s all around us. It seems so overwhelming! Here we will cover three things - protecting yourself, protecting your children, and protecting deceased loved ones. I am not an expert on this so I’m going to give you articles to read, and a few tips I have picked up through the years.
Let’s begin with protecting yourself. I think this is the one we are most familiar with so I’m just going to put an article for you to review, and leave a website from our government here for you to check out - or come back to if you need it at a later time. Experian ( https://www.experian.com ) has a great article on their blog titled “how to protect yourself from identity theft” with steps for protecting yourself, and tons of information from what identity theft is, and how to know if someone has targeted you. Another great resource to check out is: https://www.usa.gov/identity-theft for more help as well.
So here’s another one that I had not thought of until a friend mentioned it - I should mention that I don’t have children so that might be the reason - but what about your child’s identity? This one is especially tricky because it could be years before you even notice that their identity has been taken. Did you know that you can freeze your child’s credit preventing it from being taken? Although it doesn’t help with all identity theft it does take the most common type of identity theft off your plate. There is a great article from Forbes ( https://www.forbes.com ) explaining how it works, and why it’s helpful titled “3 reasons to freeze your child’s credit.” If you’re a parent this would be a great thing to tackle this month!
And finally, let’s talk about how to protect your deceased loved ones from identity theft. I found this years ago in a Real Simple magazine, but knew it was worth holding on to. There’s already enough to worry about when someone passes away, let’s not add identity theft to that list. The article used the advice of Carrie Kerskie, the director of the Identity Fraud Institute at Hodges University in Naples, Florida. According to Carrie you should get enough copies of the death certificate to send to the following: the Social Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, the three major credit bureaus - Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax (the same ones you’ll want to freeze your child’s credit with), their bank, any brokerage firms they have worked with, and their insurance companies. You can request a credit report to help identify any other accounts you’ll need to take care of, and you can place a deceased alert on the file as well. You will also want to cancel their driver license, and any other professional licenses issued to this person. Carrie also recommends keeping obituaries discreet. I can speak from personal experience as someone targeted my grandmother after my grandfather’s death pretending to be my cousin and asking for money to help him get out of jail. The only way they could have tied my cousin to my grandma is through the obituary. And a simple google search revealed my cousin’s DWI. She was smart enough to tell “him” to call his parents so don’t worry! But there’s just no limit to what a person will do to steal from you. If you want to do a bit more reason yourself check out: idtheftcenter.org.
I’m sure there is much I have missed, but this is just a few things for you to start to think about. These resources will be here any time you need them!
XOXO, Kylie