Tonight's presenter was Tom Lydon, of the Consumer Affairs Division of the Office of the State of Illinois Comptroller, Judy Baar Topinka.
Tom had much good information and many safety tips for residents, along with some interesting examples of how crooks steal a person's identity: dumpster diving; skimming; phishing; pre-texting; radio-frequency ID (RFID).
Check your bankcards right now for the RFID symbol.What can you do to protect yourself from a crook walking past you and collecting your credit card information?
1. call your credit card issuer and request a card without the RFID symbol;
2. buy an aluminum case at Walmart or Target (pay cash) or online;
3. go hi-tech and pull out a piece of aluminum foil and wrap it around your card(s).
In 2012 12.6 million IDs were stolen. Tom says the estimate of 33 hours to resolve problems caused by the ID-theft crooks is probably low.
Don't fall for any e-mails that appear to be from IRS. They will mail you or show up at your door.
Look into adding Fraud Alerts and Credit Freezes to your credit bureau records and card accounts. If you are 65 or older, a Credit Freeze is free.
Order free credit reports from the three major credit reporting bureaus by going to www.annualcreditreport.com You can get one without charge from each credit bureau every year. Consider ordering one every four months, rather than all three at once.
Coming up:
January 21, 7:00PM City Council meeting. K-9 Officer Brinx retires.
February 11, 7:00PM 100th Coffee with the Chief. Special program by a Bomb Squad.
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