Criminals stealing property by taking over land titles without the original owner’s knowledge is nothing new.  It often starts with  Identity Theft and for several years it has been more common in  hot real estate markets.  That happens when financial institutions don’t have the manpower to verify buyers adequately and the criminals use stolen personal information at the Land Titles Office, to impersonate the original owner.  And the property theft is much easier if theLearn More

We have talked about the fact that much of our personal information is in places over which we have no control.  We’ve also pointed out some steps we can take to keep that information safe where we do have control.  In this technological world, the area that appears to be the biggest problem for us – and a great source of information for the criminals, is Social Media.  Many criminals view social media as aLearn More

In the last issue, we suggested photocopying the contents of your wallet or purse, in case they are lost or stolen and become #IdentityTheft.  Having copies of everything makes restoring your identity much easier.  However, you must be sure to use a secure photocopier when doing so.  This topic draws a lot of attention in our #IdentityTheft Seminars. Virtually every photocopier made since 2002 has  a hard drive which captures and stores all documents everLearn More

Many of us are in the habit of carrying various pieces of identification most of the time.  Some of that identification, and the information it contains, needs to be carried with us – an example is our Driver’s License.  And no doubt we need our credit cards on a regular basis.  Not only may we need those pieces of identification, the Driver’s License also provides Photo ID.  But two things to keep in mind:  First,Learn More

In our last post we discussed the fact that Biometric Identification, while appearing to be a more secure system, also has its limitations since once added to a computer database it becomes digitized just like a credit card or Social Insurance Number. Jake Stroup, in an article for “the balance”, points out that biometric identification has its own limitations.  For example, “You may be able to get a new credit card in two weeks onceLearn More

You’re probably familiar with the term “Biometric Identification” – using your unique finger prints, facial recognition, voice or retinas to identify you.  They may be unique, but when installed on a computer, the information is still a string of numbers, it’s digitized. The article, “Biometric Identification and Identity Theft”, by Jake Stroup at “the balance” states that when the information is stored on a computer, a database is a database, whether it’s a credit cardLearn More

In our Identity Theft, Fraud and Scam seminars, we often mention that in 2005, at any given time, there were approximately 300 internet chat rooms on which 60,000 criminals around the world were buying and selling our personal information.  Now we see why! Experian has reported that according to the Federal Trade Commission, Synthetic Identity Theft is now the fastest growing type of identity fraud.  It is representing 80 to 85% of all current identityLearn More

We have discussed the issue of personal information in areas over which we have no control, however we will be coming back to it in future #IdentityTheft posts when discussing where criminals obtain that information.  This time, we’ll look at some areas where we do have control and some steps we can take to prevent the loss of that information. Limiting the information we provide to legitimate businesses and organizations is the first step.  Next,Learn More

There are many ways criminals can gain access to our personal information and making us #IdentityTheft victims, often through sources over which we have no control.  One source in particular, has both controllable and uncontrollable features.  Mail! Mail distribution provides criminals with several access points to our personal information.  The first, and most obvious, is mail theft.  Criminals have been known to pepper spray postal employees and steal letter box keys for the sole purposeLearn More