Protect Your Identity

Identity theft continues to be the fastest growing crime in the U.S. It affects hundreds of thousands of Americans each year. Here are some tips to protect your identity:

• Secure personal information in your home, especially if you have roommates, employ outside help, or are having work done in your home.
• Don't give out personal information such as your credit card number or bank account number on the phone, through the mail, or on the Internet unless you've initiated the contact or are sure you know whom you're dealing with.
• Treat your mail carefully. Never put bill payments in your mailbox. Take them and your other mail to a post office or U.S. Mail collection box. Pick up new checks at your bank rather than having them mailed to your home mailbox.
• Treat your trash carefully. Shred or tear your charge receipts, copies of credit applications, insurance forms, physician statements, checks and bank statements, expired charge cards that you're discarding, and credit offers you get in the mail.
• Don't carry your Social Security number card in your wallet.
• Give your Social Security number only when absolutely necessary, and ask to use other types of identifiers.
• Write checks with a gel pen. Gel ink is much harder for a thief to wash off and forge a stolen check.
• Photocopy the contents of your wallet, front and back. Then you will know what is missing and who to call in case of theft.

If Your Identify is Stolen

1. Place a fraud alert on your credit reports, and review your credit reports.
   Contact the toll-free fraud number of any of the three consumer reporting companies below to place a fraud alert on your credit report. You only need to contact one of the three companies to place an alert. The company you call is required to contact the other two, which will place an alert on their versions of your report, too.
   1. Equifax: 1-800-525-6285; www.equifax.com
   2. Experian: 1-888-397-3742; www.experian.com
   3. TransUnion: 1-800-680-7289; www.transunion.com
2. Close the accounts that you know, or believe, have been tampered with or opened fraudulently.
3. File a report with your local police or the police in the community where the identity theft took place.
   
4. File a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission by calling the FTC toll-free Identity Theft Hotline at 1-877-IDTHEFT (1-877-438-4338).

For more information on identity theft

• www.consumer.gov/idtheft.