GREENSBORO, NC - There are a handful of easy ways you can protect your identity, of course shredding documents with personal information is one of them. Thursday, 2WTK's FREE ShredAThon is at JR's in Burlington from 4-7pm. Monday's FREE Shred is at the Greensboro Coliseum, again from 4-7pm.
2WTK talked to attorney Emily Miester of Black, Slaughter and Black. Miester helps folks unravel the mess of identity theft.
She says one of the best things you can do is read your account statements every month. "You might assume your husband or wife has used the account, to make a purchase, but if you don't review those and don't catch it and give timely notice, it's going to make it much more difficult for you to get those funds back."
Crooks test the waters. They often make one purchase to see if you notice. If you don't, they make a bunch more.
Know when your bills are due. If you're not getting a regular bill, something is wrong. The business didn't forget.
Check your medical explanation of benefits. Miester says, medical ID fraud is one the fastest growing identity theft categories. Also, don't just throw your prescription pill bottles and prescription explanations away. That's just too easy for a crook. With your insurance number and medical ID number they can pretend to be you and use your medical benefits.
Use a permanent marker to mark through all the bottle information. Shred the other paperwork.
Check your credit report. You get a FREE credit report from each of the three credit bureaus: Experian, Equifax and Trans Union.
Don't be paying for a credit reports! Go to AnnualCreditReport and space out the reports. Get the report from Experian this month, the Equifax report four months from now, and then the report from Trans Union four months later. This spreads out the coverage.
Most of us think we would know immediately if someone stole our identity. When they charge your debit card, you probably do. But often, identity thieves will use your information to open new credit cards and to get loans you would never know about!
"There are data bases unfortunately that criminals maintain now where they may have some of these pieces already, that may allow them to plug some of the holes of missing information and allow them to create more accounts."