There are so many great holidays approaching: my second-favorite, Halloween, is right around the corner, followed one month later by my very favorite, Turkey-Coma-Day! We’re preparing to mask our identities by dressing as ghosts, ghouls, and slutty versions of beloved childhood characters, but we need to remember how important it is to protect our true identities from the things that really go bump in the night.
Thankfully, the National Foundation for Credit Counseling and the Council of Better Business Bureaus have teamed up to bring us National Protect Your Identity Week. Securing your identity against theft isn’t difficult, but we don’t all take the necessary steps to do so. We put things off, we think “that’ll never happen to me…” But last year it did happen to 10 million Americans, so you’re just gonna have to get off your butt and protect yourself!
No worries though, www.ProtectYourIDNow.org and Poorer Than You have you covered. On that site, you can take a quiz to assess your risk of identity theft, and learn some helpful tips to keep your identity safe. And starting tomorrow, I’ll be bringing giving you daily assignments for how you can protect your identity this week and year ‘round!
College students: pay particular attention to the tips available on the College Students and Identity Theft page.
Hi Stephanie,
Is there a particular service you recommend to make your your protected more? Life Lock, Privacy Aid, Etc? I know theres like 10 major ones, I signed up for life lock once and tested them by ordering a credit card and sending it to a different address and NO ALERT…. I will glady pay $10-$15 a month for a service that actually works…
Meh. From what I know about Lifelock (which is the only one I know anything about), the things they do are all things you could do yourself, for free. So no, there isn’t any service I recommend – just some simple precautions that I’ll be covering over the course of the week.
That picture there is from the cover of one of my favorite books! I loved Jennifer Government (by Max Barry).
I knew I’d seen it before! The image is listed under the Creative Commons license on Flickr – as are nearly all of the images I use on this site.
Merry National Protect Your Identity Week! It’s always good to remember to protect your identity and personal information. Good reminder, and cool picture.
Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in America. I deal with clients on a daily basis that have been victimized. As a consumer, it is very important to be as cautious as one can without becoming paranoid of course.