We’ve all heard the horror stories of people whose identities have been stolen. Their bank accounts are wiped out, credit cards maxed out, and they feel terribly violated. Then after the “theft” has been discovered, they are faced with the hassle of rebuilding their financial reputation, one step at a time.

Too often, these people are partly to blame: in today’s age of data aggregators, social media, and slick Google searches, their information is laid open and bare… by them, usually unwittingly.

While there are no guarantees, here are some simple steps you can take to protect your name, and avoid the bad guys:

1) Don’t “Tweet” or post a status message that you will be out of town: it’s too easy for someone to electronically ‘case’ your profile, and then break into your real-world home and steal you blind.

2) Be careful how many personal details you post. Don’t post your birthday, Social Security Number, mother’s maiden name, etc. These can be used by others to impersonate you over the phone, get newly issued copies of REAL identification sent out, and apply for new credit cards.

3) Don’t have easily guessable passwords. Use your browser’s built-in ability to suggest “strong” passwords, or use a password manager that does this for you.  If this is not possible, then use different passwords for each site, include at least 8 characters, and always include numbers and punctuation.

4) Register on as many social media sites as you can with your name, before others who have your name do so. That way, if someone searches for your name within a particular site, they’re more likely to find you. Check out www.knowem.com – this site makes it very easy.

5) Only accept connections, friends, etc from people who you know in the real world. If you want to accept everyone, only let them see limited information.

6) Don’t respond to email requests that let you know that you’ve won millions of dollars. This is just a come-on to get you to reveal your banking information for them to “deposit” your winnings. (Instead, they siphon your account dry.)

7) Turn off location-sharing within your mobile devices, and quit out of any corporate apps immediately after using them.  Does everyone need to know your location at all times?  (No.)

8) Be very careful to not give websites or apps “permission” to mine your contacts and other details within your profile.

9) Never use “sign in with Facebook”, or “sign in with Twitter”, or “sign in with Google”.  With the exception of “sign in with Apple”, all of these  other conveniences are nothing more than invisible tracking and profile-building mechanisms, that trade your privacy for a supposed convenience. 

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