We’ve all heard of him. But we all think we are invincible. Identity theft!

What is? It refers to the preparatory stage of acquiring and collecting another person’s personal information for criminal purposes.

Identity theft techniques can range from the simplest, such as junk theft and mail theft, to more elaborate schemes.

If your identity is stolen, do you have a plan to mitigate the damage? If not, you should at least bookmark it, in case you need it in the future.

Identity thieves look for the following information:
• full name
• date of birth
• Social security numbers
• full address
• Mother’s Maiden Name
• username and password for online services
• Driver’s license number
• personal identification numbers (PINs)
• credit card information (numbers, expiration dates, and the last three digits printed on the signature panel)
• bank account numbers
• signature
• passport number

There are things you can do to protect yourself from identity theft, and there are steps you can take to minimize the damage and help bring the thief to justice.

Here are 5 things you can do right now to protect yourself:
1. Don’t sign the back of your credit cards. Instead, write ‘PHOTO ID REQUIRED’.
2. When writing checks to pay your credit card bills, DO NOT put the full account number on the ‘For’ line. Instead, just put in the last four numbers. The credit card company knows the rest of the number, and anyone who may be handling your check as it goes through all the check processing channels won’t have access to it.
3. Put your work phone number on your checks instead of your home phone. If you have a PO Box, use that instead of your home address. If you don’t have a PO Box, use your work address. Never print your SIN on your checks. (DUH!) You can add it if you need to. But if you have it printed, anyone can get it.
4. Put the contents of your wallet in a photocopier. Do both sides of every license, credit card, etc. You will know what you had in your wallet and all the account numbers and telephone numbers to call and cancel. Keep the photocopy in a safe place.
5. When traveling abroad, take a photocopy of your passport. We’ve all heard horror stories about being frauded by stealing a name, address, social security number, credit cards, etc.

If your identity is stolen, what kinds of things can you expect to happen?

Here are some of the things they can do:
1. Access your bank accounts
2. Open new bank accounts
3. Transfer bank balances
4. Apply for loans, credit cards
5. Shop
6. Buy cell phone packages
7. Line of credit approved by retail stores
8. Access your driving record and change your information online

If you are a victim, here is critical information to act immediately:
1. Pay off your credit cards right away. But the key is to have your toll-free numbers and card numbers handy so you know who to call. Keep them where you can find them. That’s why we photocopy them (see above). Also call your local bank/financial institution.
2. File a police report immediately in the jurisdiction where your credit cards, etc. were stolen. This shows credit providers that you were diligent, and this is a first step toward an investigation (if there ever is one).
But this is what is perhaps most important of all:
3. Call the national credit reporting companies right away. Ask them to put a fraud alert on your name and credit report. The alert means that any company that checks your credit knows that your information was stolen and must contact you by phone to authorize new credit.

Here are the numbers for two national credit bureaus:
1.) Equifax: 1-800-465-7166
2.) TransUnion Canada: 1-877-525-3823
3. Request free copies of your credit report from each of the credit reporting companies in the country.

Have you been a victim of identity theft? Tell us your story and maybe others can learn from what you did or didn’t do.