08/02/07 Protecting Your Identity

Protecting Your Identity. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. I hate to be the one to tell you but times have changed. I know this is probably a shock to you but you really have to be careful out there. There are a lot of people who want to be you! At least they want your personal information so they can access your checking, savings & credit cards. We know first hand. Several years ago, my wife opened a credit card bill that had a great deal of electronic & stereo equipment charged to it. She knew neither one of us had done it so she contacted the credit card company and after a great deal of frustrations found out that someone in Florida had stolen her personal information and was using her credit card information to get what they wanted. Fortunately for us, the credit card company believed our story and removed the charge, then promptly went after the perpetrator. Stealing someone's identity is easier than you think and you may inadvertently be helping! Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna is traveling the state alerting people to ways of protecting yourself. Kristin Alexander is the Media Relations Manager with the Attorney General's office. ALEXANDER: The reality is the majority of identity thefts still occur in some very low-tech methods such as a lost or stolen wallet. That's the most common occurrence. Issues such as somebody going through your trash or stealing your mail can also put you at jeopardy and then you can have the high-tech methods like hacking and phishing which is those fake emails that look like their from your bank or an online option company. A lot of people are still not aware that they can be a victim of identity theft so the Attorney General's office is trying to help educate the public. ALEXANDER: We're really putting focus on what you as an individual can do to help protect your identity from being stolen and the Attorney General's office is also reaching out to Washington State businesses to talk about what they can do to help protect customer and employee information. As you can see there are many ways for someone to find out vital information about you and one that I hadn't even thought about&an ID tag on your luggage. ALEXANDER: Well an interesting thing about the luggage tag is you're not only putting yourself in jeopardy of someone finding your address but also quite frankly of having your house burglarized which some people don't think about. Personally when I travel, I use my business card. If something happens with my luggage it's going to be returned to my office. I don't want to risk that someone says  Oh look, Kristin Alexander is traveling to Washington DC this week, I guess she'd not home. Tomorrow we talk about other ways to protect yourself from identity theft. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.