Protect you and your business from identity theft

March 31, 2011

By Erica Finley

Do you know how to protect you and your business from identity theft?

Do you have some sensitive paper documents, CDs or discs that you’d like to dispose of properly and safely? The Better Business Bureau of Minnesota and North Dakota and AARP North Dakota are sponsoring a “Secure Your ID Day.”

The event will be held from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. April 16 at Wells Fargo, 2501 13^th Ave. S., Fargo, according to Inforum. Residents and businesses are encouraged to bring materials in one box or one bag to be shredded.

Tips and resources on how to avoid identity theft will be provided. For more information, call 701-355-3653 or visit the website.

So what are some other ways that you can avoid identity theft? Fraud.org offers a few tips:

Keep financial information close to the vest. Unless you’re buying something, companies won’t ask you for your credit card or bank account number.

Keep your social security number private. Don’t hand it out to anyone unless you know who it is and exactly why they need it. If your state department of motor vehicles uses it as your driver’s license number, ask if you get an alternate number.

Be on the lookout for imposters. Identity thieves will often pose as representatives from companies you do business with, claiming they need to verify personal information. Don’t respond — call the company directly to make sure the call or email is legitimately from them.

Keep your mail safe. It sounds like common sense, but if you’re going to be out of town, have your mail held or ask a relative to collect it daily. Often your mail includes account numbers and other personal information that can be tempting for identity thieves.

For more tips, check out the rest of the list here.

This post is brought to you by the good folks at Dale Carnegie Training of North Dakota, providers of professional development and management development courses and information in North Dakota. We would love to connect with you on Facebook.

Photo credit: Don Hankins

Tags: best practices, dale carnegie training of north dakota, identity theft, professional development, protecting your identity

This entry was posted on March 31, 2011 at 5:10 pm and is filed under Local Buzz. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

http://www.fraudinvestigationservices.org.uk Fraud Investigation Services

Identity theft is a very serious issue we must deal with. Every businesses and companies should know a complex guide to deal with those tricky criminals just in case they are targeted.
Anonymous

Organize your paper documents, have their copies or your hard drive properly disposed through the help of shredding if necessary.
When you have an organize living or working environment, you will be able to find the paper document that you are looking for. You may also be able to notice if there are any anomalous credit billings.
I read an article on getting things organized at home:
http://family.go.com/household/article-838900-how-a-838900-how-a-work-station-can-help-your-kids-t/
Our information as well as investments are very important to us. The Internet and our computer hard drives assist us in sharing or keeping our files and so we need to be responsible in uploading certain details about us.
Anonymous

I do hope that more and more people will learn about ID theft and how this kind of fraud can be prevented. It is not very difficult to do this. What we need to do is to be extra careful and keep our passwords and account numbers secret. Do not share too much personal information especially online because you do not know everyone that can gain access to it.
We have to better equip ourselves against ID theft and I read another helpful article at:
http://blogs.ft.com/techblog/2010/03/ftc-raps-identity-theft-prevention-firm-lifelock/
Fraudulent minds can manipulate any data that have accessed and this is why we have to be very careful with all the information that we decide to divulge because a simply transaction using your credit card or security number to purchase an item may be a way on how bad people get your information.