By Consolidated Credit Counseling Services of Canada

Unfortunately, there is no surefire way to protect yourself from identity theft. But there are steps you can take to minimize the chances that your information will be stolen and used by a thief.
  • Carry only the cards you need in your wallet. It’s a good idea to leave extra credit cards and your Social Insurance card locked up safely at home.
  • Make a copy of all your credit cards, front and back, and keep that list in a safe (locked) place in case your wallet or purse is stolen.
  • When shopping, take your credit card receipts with you and then store them in a safe place at home. Pay attention while your purchases are being rung up to make sure the card information isn’t written down or copied an extra time.
  • Don’t let a store clerk write your credit card number or any unnecessary identification information on your cheque. If she wants to write down your driver’s license number, for example, ask her not to write down the complete number. Ask to speak to a manager if the clerk insists on copying all your information onto your cheque.
  • Don’t print your driver’s license or social insurance number on your cheques.
  • When asked for your social insurance number, always ask if you can provide another number.
  • Don’t use ABM machines from financial institutions you don’t recognize. Thieves have used ABMs to gather information from customers about their cards or accounts.
identity theft computer monitor
Photo by Domenico Loia on Unsplash

Make sure your home is a safe haven.

  • Thieves can pluck bills or other mail from your mailbox and use that information to commit fraud. To protect yourself, use a locked mailbox if possible to receive mail. (Type “locked mailbox” in an Internet search engine for sources.)
  • Never have new cheques sent to your home, unless your mailbox is secure. Ask them to be delivered to your bank and pick them up instead.
  • Buy an inexpensive shredder to shred any mail or documents with sensitive information.
  • Keep track of when your credit card bills normally arrive. If one is missing, contact your lender immediately. Don’t just assume you get to skip a month’s payment!
If you’re not careful, your computer can be like an unlocked door into your home.

Use a firewall on your home computer to protect against identity theft.

These are often inexpensive, and well worth it. If you are connected all the time to the Internet via a cable modem or DSL, it’s especially important to be protected.

Choose good passwords.

Don’t use your social insurance number, address, dates of you or your children’s birth, etc. The best passwords use letters and numbers, but don’t be obvious (your child’s name and date of birth, for example).

Watch user names, too.

Don’t use email addresses or user names that give away valuable personal information. For example, a user name of Hannah1199 might indicate you have a daughter named Hannah born in November 1999. Do you really want strangers knowing that?

Beware of “phishing.”

With this scam, companies use email or fake websites to collect personal information from consumers. Thousands of consumers have fallen victim to the “PayPal” and “BestBuy” email scams, for example, where they allegedly received emails from these companies, asking them to log in and update their information. The sites were operated by fraudsters but looked real. Always log into financial sites from the home page you usually use and check out suspicious emails at sites devoted to exposing email hoaxes, such as www.truthorfiction.org before responding to emails like this.

Think twice before providing sensitive personal information online.

In some scams, consumers have been duped into “applying for loans” on fake websites designed only to gather consumer information. In other cases, companies have sold information gathered from consumers, without their permission, to outside companies. Make sure the website is reputable before you type in your social insurance number or other identifying information.

Free isn’t always good.

Another recent scam involves sites offering “free” credit reports. Instead, these sites harvest information that can be used for identity theft. Visit the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada website for resources and links to fraud information nationwide at www.fcac-acfc.gc.ca/eng/consumers/alerts/default.asp.

Shop carefully.

Deal with merchants that have secure websites, and are reputable. For the maximum protection, always use a credit card rather than an Interac card when dealing with a new merchant online.

Before you trash a computer, make sure your information is no longer available to someone who may pick it up from the trash or a charity.

Purchase a program that “wipes” your computer clean or physically destroys the hard drive. (Simply deleting files will not be sufficient.) Excerpted from “Identity Theft“. Reproduced with permission of Consolidated Credit Counseling Services of Canada Inc., www.consolidatedcredit.ca.