FTC: One Out of Five Consumers Has Errors on Their Credit Report

caption=”Which one is you?

Go to this link to watch the story on how many people have errors in their report (how many are significant errors!) and what to do to fix it!  When it comes to your Credit File YOU must be proactive to maintain it up to date and error free … the report effects many aspects of your life: refinance of home, auto’ loans;  Home owners insurance rates;  health Insurance rates; ability to rent an apartment, house, office space, etc.  We provide continuous monitoring; repair; restoration and Peace of Mind for your entire family for pennies a day, check it out


How to Respond to a Suspicious IRS-related Communication

Identity Thieves are busy this time of the year.  They are making the IRS work overtime.  Currently, as of September 2012, there were 650,000 unresolved cases within the IRS dealing with Identity Theft.  Here’s a link to help you if you receive suspicious IRS-related communications

Tax Related Identity Theft

As many people are filing their taxes it’s time to be on the lookout for what the Identity Thieves are doing … here’s an article that may prove useful (more)

Stickups – Down … Identity Theft – Up

Bank robberies are down significantly plummeting over that past 15 years.  What was once a “high -reward … Low -risk” crime is now just the opposite.  Banks have employed guards, sentencing is more strict and the result was as expected – less bank robbery.

Criminals have “adapted” just like viruses and are now immune to the latest tactics used by law enforcement and are now using “cyber techniques” to accomplish their robberies.  Identity theft is up significantly over the same period and the trend is increasing.  The criminals now look at Identity Theft as the “high – reward … low – risk” crime of choice.  Jack Nicas wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal on February 5, 2013 – “Crime That No Longer Pays” … you might peruse it for greater insight.

My solution to this and other cyber crimes is to use the Legal Shield Identity Theft Protection Plan that covers me and my spouse, and for an extra $1.00 it covers all my dependent children under the age of 18 – it differs from all other plans in that it provides “Restoration”, in other words they restore my credit back to its’ pre-breach status.  My accounts are continuously monitored, any activity is reported to me via email and text msg, I check the activity to see if its been generated by me, if not I call an 800 number and begin the fix, restore process – all for $13.95 a month.  It’s that easy to provide you and your loved ones Peace of Mind!  Take a look at what is provided by clicking (more) and if you want assistance in setting up your families protection get in touch with me.

You are NOT safe from Identity Theft

It’s time for you to take a look at the reality of “cyber -crimes” and how it is effecting your life.  The stakes are enormous.  “We the People” trust in our government to protect us, we trust in our large institutions (banks, insurance companies, brokerage firms, etc.) to do likewise.  The cyber criminals on the other hand, relentlessly, pursue an agenda that comes in many facets.  Some are political enemies of the United States and wish to destroy our financial institutions to topple our government; others are out and out criminals stealing our identities to rob our bank accounts, use our credit cards, steal our health benefits, use our social security numbers to gain employment, rob our driver’s licenses and in some cases use our good name and clean record to commit crimes or to gain access to our country because their given name is on a “watch list” that prevents them from entering our Country.

Far too many people believe that if they simply destroy their credit cards, cut up their social security card, lock away their driver’s license, shread their documents, etc that they will be safe (the latest iteration of the Ostrich with its head buried in the sand) – this can’t be further from the truth.  Since our birth, institutions have obtained our confidential personal information from hospitals, schools, employers, banks, etc … our new born babies require applications for social security cards before leaving the hospital (today the fastest growing aspect of identity theft is the theft of children’s identities between the ages of 0-18) our information is “out there”  Today’s thieves are “hacking” into these large institutions with all of our confidential date (supposedly safeguarded) and using it for their purposes.

Our only safeguard is to purchase an Identity Theft Protection Plan, have it monitor our credit bureau activity, alert us to changes within our files (including our children’s files) then provide us with information on how to handle the illegal use of our information.  Collectively, all of our “personal confidential information” has been stolen by these thieves as they hack into large institutions; our Government indicates over 500 Million personal records have been compromised (that they know about) and we know there are only 360 Million Americans, therefore it’s easy to see they have our information already.

This headline was in today’s paper – “Fed says internal site breached by hackers, no critical functions affected” (more) I rest my case – when the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States of America gets hacked you and I have no hope of protection.

Take Action Today … spend 12 minutes and view my video … it will allow you to see what protection looks like and it will provide you peace of mind – peace of mind for your entire family including your babies, children and teen-agers.

THE OTHER HALF OF THE STORY









Not to diminish the “risk” American’s face from criminals with guns, I’d like to present another “risk” American’s are facing. As Daniel Wood states the US Crime rate is at a decade’s low, the FTC just reported: For Release: 02/28/2012


FTC Releases Top Complaint Categories for 2011

Identity Theft Once Again Tops the List

The Federal Trade Commission today released its list of top consumer complaints received by the agency in 2011. For the 12th year in a row, identity theft complaints topped the list.

Identity Theft Reported By Households, 2005-2010  –Lynn Langton

November 30, 2011    NCJ 236245

Presents data on the nature of and trends in identity theft victimization among U.S. households from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). The NCVS defines identity theft as the misuse or attempted misuse of an existing credit card or another existing account or the misuse of personal information to open a new account or for other fraudulent purposes. Findings are based on experiences of all household members age 12 or older as reported by the head of household. The data brief examines changes in the percentage of households experiencing identity theft from 2005 to 2010. It describes differences in the types of identity theft experienced by households in 2010 compared to 2005, as well as changes in the demographic characteristics of victimized households. The brief also presents estimates on the monetary losses attributed to household victims of identity theft.

Highlights:

  • In 2010, 7.0% of households in the United States, or about 8.6 million households, had at least one member age 12 or older who experienced one or more types of identity theft victimization.
  • Among households in which at least one member experienced one or more types of identity theft, 64.1% experienced the misuse or attempted misuse of an existing credit card account in 2010.
  • From 2005 to 2010, the percentage of all households with one or more type of identity theft that suffered no direct financial loss increased from 18.5% to 23.7%.

WHAT TO DO?

Protect yourself!

Criminals are coming at us on (2) fronts – Overt and Covert.  It’s your decision on how best to mitigate the Overt … self defense, awareness, alarms, firearms.

On the Covert side … Identity Theft is a “silent killer” affecting millions and the story is getting worse – more victims year after year.  We offer the solution you’ve been looking for, monitoring your Credit Bureau Activity (like everyone does) PLUS we provide “restoration” … we restore you back to your “pre-breach” status … this restoration is unique within the industry, others do not provide it and according to the FTC the average victim spends over 800 hours repairing their own credit when victimized – that’s 40% of a complete years work at 40 hours per week.  Restoration is a valuable service.  Here’s the info if you’re interested.

HALF OF THE STORY











For a guaranteed blank stare, ask gun-control proponents how often Americans use guns to defend themselves. They can’t tell you, because they don’t ask.

Suppose a guy goes to a baseball game. “Honey,” his wife asks afterward, “who won the game?” The husband says, “The Dodgers scored four runs.” What’s missing? Obviously, the wife still knows nothing about the outcome because she knows only one-half of the equation. Well, how can one responsibly discuss “how many people die because of guns” without discussing the other half of the equation — how many people would not be alive without their defensive use of a gun?

So, how often do Americans use firearms for self-defense?

Criminologist Gary Kleck estimates that 2.5 million Americans use guns to defend themselves each year. Out of that number, 400,000 believe that but for their firearms, they would have been dead.

Professor Emeritus James Q. Wilson, the UCLA public policy expert, says: “We know from Census Bureau surveys that something beyond 100,000 uses of guns for self-defense occur every year. We know from smaller surveys of a commercial nature that the number may be as high as 2 1/2 or 3 million. We don’t know what the right number is, but whatever the right number is, it’s not a trivial number.”

Former Manhattan Assistant District Attorney David P. Koppel studied gun control for the Cato Institute. Citing a 1979-1985 study by the National Crime Victimization Survey, Koppel found: “When a robbery victim does not defend himself, the robber succeeds 88 percent of the time, and the victim is injured 25 percent of the time. When a victim resists with a gun, the robbery success rate falls to 30 percent, and the victim injury rate falls to 17 percent. No other “response to a robbery” — from drawing a knife to shouting for help to fleeing — produces such low rates of victim injury and robbery success.”

When asked if additional gun laws would be beneficial or have no effect, most Americans get it. They oppose shifting power to the criminal. And they don’t need the National Rifle Association to tell them: The only people willing to abide by additional gun laws are the law-abiding.

Larry Elder is a best-selling author and radio talk-show host. To find out more about Larry Elder, or become an “Elderado,” visit www.LarryElder.com.

“US crime rate at lowest point in decades. Why America is safer now.” The crime rate for serious crimes, including murder, rape, and assault, has dropped significantly since the early 1990s in part because of changes in technology and policing, experts say.

By Daniel B. Wood, Staff writer / January 9, 2012

Are Utah’s children safe from Identity Theft?

Are your children safe?


Answer is, “some are,” but most are not.  We live in a wonderful part of the World here in Salt Lake City.  Our Mountains, Canyons, National Parks and outdoor facilities are a draw for people from all over the Planet.  We are also a big draw for those who steal the innocence, good names, un-spotted credit records and identities of children.


Utah has had larger families than the United States (on average) since records have bee kept.  Our schools have a larger number of students per class than any other State. In 2010 Utah had the lowest median age among the states at 29.2 years. The second-youngest state, Texas, had a median age of 33.6, a whopping 4.4 years older than Utah.  Utah’s median age was also 22 percent lower  a full eight years younger  than the national median of 37.2 years old. Also, Utahns typically were 13.5 years younger than residents of Maine, the oldest state, where the median age was 42.7.

Identity Theft has been the leading complaint at the Federal Trade Commission  (FTC) for over a decade and recently studies have been released indicating that the Theft of children’s identities is the fastest growing segment of this insidious crime.

A CMU study states, “The primary drivers for such attacks are illegal immigration (e.g., to obtain false IDs for employment), organized crime (e.g., to engage in financial fraud) and friends and family (e.g., to circumvent bad credit ratings, etc.).”  And the theft could go undetected for years, because few think to check their kids’ credit. When do parents find out? “When collection agencies call or when the child becomes an adult and is turned down for his or her first credit card,”  Equifax says. The CMU study adds some examples…

  • 303 victims under 5 years old – and one only 5 months old
  • 537 cases where a child’s Social Security number appeared in property records, including those related to mortgages and foreclosures
  • a 16-year-old girl defrauded for $725,000

Carnegie Mellon University published an article recently, asking this question: Wouldn’t you want to know if your eight-year-old was in foreclosure on a home in another state? or if your three-year-old was in collection for a huge utility bill across town? or wouldn’t you rather find out now than on when he or she is applying for student loans on the eve of going away to college that your child has been a victim of Identity Theft?

These are hard facts about a real threat to our lives and the lives of our children.  There are affordable solutions to these threats and the reality is MOST families are not protected. I stand ready to share with you the “peace of mind’ that comes from being protected, give me a call or email today “It’s not what you know that hurts you, it’s what you know that isn’t so … and thinking this will never happen to me “just isn’t so!

So, in all fairness, my title isn’t totally accurate – Are Utah’s Children safe from Identity Theft?  It should say, “Are America’s Children safe from Identity Theft,” and my answer is the same – “some are,” but most are not.