In the parking lot of United Federal Credit Union today (Thursday), cars stuffed with papers were lined up, while a huge shredder was grinding away inside a box truck. 60 empty bins stood waiting to be filled. Branch Manager Dottie Benda said this "community shred event" is part of doing war with identity theft: "You know, there's so much identity theft out there...8 million people get hit!"
That's every year, and Dottie is not surprised. She sees too many customers get taken. She gets calls every day. "We do. And we'll have them say, 'There's stuff on my account that's not mine. It's from another state, another country." And too many people who make it easy for thieves. "We've had a few that, they'll put checks in their mailbox and people go through and steal the checks, and now they have the account number and routing number."
And it seems everywhere we looked at the shredding event, we found a story. Lindsey Lague told us, "My mom left her wallet in the store. It was stolen. Her social security card was in it, and this guy used her Social Security card for everything." John Yuspa's tale: "My sister, one of her co-workers stole her identity, took her Social Security number, date of birth and such like that."
Barbara Conboy, who brought a file cabinet full of papers, remembers a former teacher. "Oh she was wiped out. She was wiped out clean, and really got no assistance." Like everyone else, she came with a car full of documents. But as people go paperless, so do scammers. Across town at Biz-Net, a computer management company for businesses, Marco Romero told us, "It is a huge problem. And it is becoming worse all the time."
Marco has been fighting electronic scams and id theft for 15 years now, and he's busier than ever. His own laptop got infected, just 10 minutes before we arrived. His technician Michael was just doing a search. Marco asked, "Did it ask you to enter information?" Michael said, "No, I knew what it was. I closed it…it started a scan."
Like the folks we met by the shredder, Marco knows many victims too, "And they got compromised. The problem is, by the time you realize it's happened, it's way too late. They've already taken advantage of you."
Marco's basic rules are these:
-Avoid giving personal information over the phone, by email, text, or on social media sites.
-Never click on unfamiliar links. Don't be fooled by fake shopping sites. If you come across an unfamiliar one, research it before you buy from it.
-Protect your computer with security and firewall software.
-Create strong, personal passwords, and never type it into unfamiliar websites.
-Only download software and apps from trusted sources.
Marco writes a blog about protecting yourself from scams and ID theft. To see that, click this link:
http://www.biz-net.com/blog/
And if your personal information has been compromised, the federal trade commission has everything you need to do on this website:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt150.shtm
-written by John Potter
