One day a man, let’s call him Harvey, goes to his mailbox to get his daily mail. In among the bills he recognizes, and the junk mail he throws out, he sees an envelope that looks like a bill he has never seen before for a company he does not recognize. He has no feelings yet as this could be anything and Harvey knows that. Those junk mail companies go to great lengths to try and make their junk mail look important. But it is better to be safe than sorry so Harvey opens this new envelope. To his horror Harvey sees it is a Mastercard bill for over $12,000 in purchases and expenses that Harvey had nothing to do with. Three days later Harvey gets another new bill, this time it is a Visa card with over $9,000 in purchases on it. Harvey panics and doesn’t know what to do. Suddenly, over the next few months, his life is ruined as he starts to get collection calls from companies he never did business with and letters threatening legal action from collection agencies he never got a chance to talk to. Harvey got his identity stolen and now he will spend years, and thousands of dollars, fixing the problem. It is frustrating that the victim is made to suffer in identity theft and the criminals sometimes never get caught but that is the way the system is set up. You need to engage in information safety exercises to prevent this from happening to you.

The first information safety lesson is that you need to treat your personal information like your lifeline because it is your lifeline and if you look at it that way you are more apt to treat it with the respect it needs. Do not give your personal information to anyone that contacts you for it. The most important thing to remember about information safety is that legitimate companies today know that there is a lot of fraud out there and they also know that your personal information should be your best kept secret. So it is unusual that a legitimate business will contact you and ask you for your personal information over the phone. If a financial institution you do business with needs to contact you they will usually do it by mail. So if someone calls you claiming to be from your credit card company and saying that they just want to confirm your account information just hang up the phone and exercise your personal information safety.

The same thing goes for emails. As our society starts to depend more and more on computers the thieves are finding it easier and easier to steal your information. Email has a whole laundry list of information safety rules but here are a few important ones. Never open at attachment that is from someone you don’t know. More than likely you will regret it. Never click on a link within an email that asks you to click here to confirm your personal information. Criminals are getting very sophisticated and they will make their email look very official to you. No legitimate internet organization will ask you to click on a link in an email to confirm your personal information. If you think it may be a legitimate email then login directly to the vendor’s website and look at your account that way. The information will still be available and you can send the company a message asking them about the email you received. Always have a firewall and anti-virus program running at all times. Criminals can get into your computer even when you are on a secure site so be careful.

It is rough out there but if you guard your personal information with your life, and use common sense, then you reduce the chances that you will be a victim. Always keep your personal information your best kept secret and never click on links in emails.