Identity Theft

Identity thieves are everywhere and you should educate yourself as the most effective protection against losing your identity. The first indication you might get is a credit card bill with a charge on it you never made. Always look closely at your bills when they arrive. Some helpful hints to protect your identity: 1. Before throwing out any computer hardware (or donations) make sure you erase the data properly. Simply trashing data is not enough, get a data shredder program to wipe that drive clean. 2. If you get an e-mail from your bank or credit card company asking for information in order to adhere to new security standards, or for any other reason, DO NOT GIVE IT OUT! Even if the site link in the e-mail looks legitimate, it is probably from a phisher who has built a dummy site. If you are not sure if it is real, call the company. 3. Surf legitimate sites, and give your information out sparingly, if at all. If a small time shopping site needs your social security number as "confirmation", it is time to take your business elsewhere. 4. When doing on line shopping, don't use a public e-mail account like Hotmail or Yahoo or Netscape to receive records of your transactions. Accounts like these are notoriously insecure, and horror stories abound about hackers reading the e-mail of Hotmail users. 5. Visit the following sites for additional information on identity theft. http://www.idtheftcenter.org/index.shtml http://www.identitytheft911.com/ Visit these sites but remember, don't give out any personal information...PERIOD! (GO HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION)