What's Your
Identity Theft IQ?
Do you have what it takes to debunk the bunk? Do you think you can protect yourself?
Identity Theft – it’s happening to more and more students!
If you’re the parent of a college-aged son or daughter, you may have heard your undergrad say something like these words, which I recently heard from my own:
“Mom/Dad, I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that I found my credit card. The bad news is that I’m not sure what happened to it while it was “lost.”
Acxiom is one of the world’s most sophisticated companies. Its massive computers keep track of more than 10 billion pieces of information, most of it marketing data designed to keep track of you. The firm claims it "engages" 375 million consumers around the world every month.
Some critics of recently reappointed Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke argue that he was too slow to realize that the financial system was teetering on the brink of collapse during 2008. But Bernanke might have had another, more personal banking issue on his mind at the time, Newsweek reports: his wife Anna’s purse was stolen in August 2008, and the thieves used its contents to access the couple’s joint checking account.
With the ink barely dry on headlines about what could be the biggest security breach in history (identity thieves hacked into payment processor Heartland Payment Services, possibly gaining access to the credit-card information of millions of consumers) signing up for a credit-monitoring service may have jumped a few notches on your to-do list.
More than 8 million identity thefts have occurred in recent years, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Are you at risk for becoming a victim?