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Exposure to ID Theft

I Know All About My Credit Reports…What About Other Databases?

Background

Please meet Mitchell, a 49-year-old construction supervisor who lives in Richmond, VA. Mitchell is divorced and has 2 older children. He has excellent credit and a very stable job given the growth in the area he lives.

His Dilemma

Mitchell, like most Americans, is worried about identity theft. He has a friend who was the victim of identity theft last year and has heard all of his horror stories. The worst part of the story is the fact that his friend is still finding evidence of being victimized a full year later. It has cost him an untold number of hours and dollars trying to get his name fully cleared.

So, the question that Mitchell has is simple: how can I be 100% impervious to identity theft?

It’s the million-dollar question. What is the pill, process, antidote or shield that will make us immune to all forms of identity theft? The problem is that nobody has found the answer to the question. In fact, it may be a question that never gets answered. But I’m not sure it really needs an answer. Hear me out...

In order to never become a victim of identity theft you must first never become a target of the thief, correct? This is simply impossible. The mere fact that you have an identity makes you a potential target. So, we should all come to grips with the fact that we are all just one or two minutes away from becoming a target.

Now that we’ve accepted that risk we can tackle step one in the process of becoming a victim of identity theft, which is being the target.

I use this analogy to put the solution into perspective…

If you were hiking through the woods with a group of people and suddenly you saw a mountain lion, what would you do? Most people would say that you should run. However, it’s physically impossible for a human to outrun a mountain lion that has a sustainable top speed of over 30 miles per hour. So what should you do? It’s simple…you should run.

You should run because you don’t have to outrun the mountain lion; you just have to outrun the people who are with you. Think about it for a second and you’ll start to get it.

Ok, so the story is a little morbid but it’s really right on. You are not trying to avoid the problem but more so trying to lessen your exposure to the problem. In this case you are trying to lessen your exposure to the mountain lion and, by doing so, make other people more attractive to it.

It’s the same when trying to avoid the identity thief. You cannot run and hide from the thief. But, you can reduce your exposure to the problem by making someone else a more attractive target.

So how do you do this? The real question you should be asking is “how can I reduce my exposure to an identity thief so he/she would rather target someone else?”

In this edition of Real Stories we’re going to focus on the “online” ways to reduce your exposure so you won’t be reading much about buying shredders or using locking mailboxes. What you will learn is how Mitchell used online tools to reduce his exposure to mountain lions…I mean identity thieves.

His Goals

Mitchell had 2 goals when we began our discussions. They were as follows:

1. Learn about online services designed to reduce exposure to identity theft.
2. Pick the best one and sign up for it.

Unfortunately Mitchell was focused on only monitoring his credit information, which is a good start but is hardly a comprehensive strategy.

Why?

Think about it. There are only 3 national credit reporting agencies and they all offer their version of credit report monitoring. Their websites are;

• www.equifax.com
• www.transunion.com
• www.experian.com

In addition to credit report monitoring you also should review your insurance reports, which can be found at www.choicetrust.com .

That’s four databases. Any others?

“Once I started thinking about it and doing the math I realized there was only so much I could do.”

There are thousands and thousands of databases, which may or may not hold your information. The credit reporting agencies are just the most obvious.

Here’s a small list of others:

• Every company you have ever worked for
• Every lender or insurance company you have ever had credit or insurance with
• Every school you have ever attended
• Every county, city and state courthouse in any location where you have ever lived
• Every utility company you have ever had service with including gas, oil, power, phone, internet, garbage service, etc, etc
• Any neighborhood association you’ve ever been a part of
• Any online account you have (eBay, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Yahoo mail, Hotmail, online checking at your bank, etc.)
• Any brokerage company you have ever used
• The Social Security Administration
• Any DMV in a state or county you’ve ever lived in
• The IRS
• State level tax administration offices
• Any library where you have ever had a library card
• Any airline where you have a frequent traveler account
• Any hotel chain where you have a frequent guest account
• Alumni associations you are a part of
• Any accountant or tax prep company you’ve ever used
• Any real estate company, closing attorney, surveyor, exterminator, home inspector or appraiser you’ve ever used when buying or selling a house or other property

Collectively these number in the tens of thousands. It’s not to say that you’re in all of these databases but I think we all can easily name at least 50 that we KNOW we are a part of but never really thought about.

What makes these any less valuable to an identity thief than the credit reporting databases? Nothing.

In fact, I would argue that the data in these databases is MORE valuable to an identity thief because you probably weren’t even thinking about them. And, my guess is that if the data from these databases was stolen or compromised you wouldn’t even know about it until it was too late.

Clearly the target of an identity thief is money. And, in order for them to get money from you they have to either steal it from you or apply for credit in your name and steal it from the creditor. And as a result of the theft your credit reports get trashed.

Monitoring your credit reports only notifies you of a problem AFTER it has already happened. It doesn’t do anything to prevent the thief from applying in your name.

And in order to apply for credit in someone’s name you need three things:

1. The full legal name of the consumer
2. Their home address
3. Their Social Security number (for most applications)

Finding someone’s name and address is fairly easy. All you have to do is look in the phone book or steal someone’s mail or garbage. But, finding someone’s Social Security number takes some work. It’s not impossible but it does take some effort. This is where you can set yourself apart from the rest of the people running from the mountain lion.

By making your information a little less accessible than your neighbor you can outrun them.

Here are some tips on how Mitchell will be doing this.

• He’ll monitor his credit reports, as he should.
• He’ll also spend some time and money buying a report that has a comprehensive list of your non-credit data.
• He’ll become VERY familiar with the data security and privacy policies of any company or organization that he shares his personal data with from this point forward.
• He’ll do his best to learn the same policies of companies that he’s shared his personal data with up to this point. In some cases the damage is already done but it helps to be aware if companies sell or rent your personal information to other companies.
• He’ll incorporate a full-scale “non internet” plan, which will make his personal information printed on hard copy impossible to get. This includes things like shredders, locking mailboxes, opting out from mail lists and Do Not Call registration.

What Does He Hope To Accomplish

Simply put, he hopes to never become a victim of identity theft. By doing some or all of these things he will reduce his exposure by a little or a lot depending on how aggressive he gets.

But, he also needs to be aware that family members or other people that we know perpetrate 40% of all identity theft cases. As such, some of these strategies aren’t going to work because the mountain lion could already be inside the house.

Mitchell drew the line at protecting against external exposure since his kids don’t live with him any longer. He feels that the threat from family and friends is non-existent.

Summary

The bottom line for Mitchell is that he can do a lot of fairly inexpensive things and reduce his exposure.

And, the time needed to do these things is also minimal. In his case he feels that it’s really just a matter of changing habits, which will become new, better habits.

It’s quite possible that Mitchell would have never even been a target of an identity thief. And, unfortunately, having an attitude of “it won’t happen to me” is probably something that most victims had at one time.

He simply wasn’t willing to take that chance and we applaud him for it. The problem is that all he has done is run from the mountain lion that has claimed another 20 victims in the 10 minutes it took you to read this article. So run fast.

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