I went to pick up the mail at the post office today (I use a post office box for my business address) and when I sorted through the various things, one in particular jumped out at me.

It was a new credit card. But not for me, it was for the person in the next box over.

That’s just an identity theft problem waiting to happen. If the wrong person had found that credit card in their box, they could have taken steps to steal the true owner’s identity (for this card at least) and started charging things up on the card.

Now I realize that the credit card companies take steps to prevent this, such as requiring a authentication phone call from the card owner’s home phone number, but a resourceful identity thief can work around a lot of these types of protection.

I don’t receive a lot of mail so I only check my box every couple of weeks. I really wonder how long that card was sitting there before I found it, and whether the card owner had followed it up at all.

Chances are they hadn’t. Most people pay no attention to the expiry dates on their credit cards. They just know it expires when the new one arrives in the mail.

This is the wrong way to handle it. You should always take note of when your credit cards expire, and make a note to follow up with the credit card company a month or so prior to that date. Find out when you should expect to receive the replacement, and if it doesn’t arrive when expected, call them back and follow it up.

That way, if someone ever grabs your new card before it gets to you, you’ll be able to have the credit card company cancel it and send you a new one.

It may be a bit of an inconvenience, but much less so than having to spend weeks, months or even years fixing your credit and all the other problems that come with identity theft.

If you want to find out more about how to protect yourself from identity theft, take a look at my Online Security Toolkit at http://www.onlinesecuritytoolkit.com

Filed under: Identity Theft

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!