Discussions

I was listening to the CBC last week and I heard a veteran RCMP officer talking about simple ways to avoid identity theft.  
 
He talked about those envelopes that we all get in our mailboxes, saying that we have been pre-approved for a credit card. The officer said that most people (me included) just throw those things in the garbage without even opening the envelope.  
 
Big mistake.  
 
He said that identity thieves go through garbage looking for those envelopes. They fill out the application, but change the mailing address on the form. When the credit card arrives to the address they put on the form, they spend to the max, leaving you with a bad credit rating. The first you hear about it is when you find out your credit rating is screwed or a collection agency calls.  
 
The officer said that we should be shredding those pre-approved credit card letters - along with anything else with our personal info on it, and not simply tossing that kind of stuff into the garbage.  
 
That is especially the case for info relating to your children.  
 
More than a dozen different people go through the dumpsters in my area each week. Could one or more of them be looking for information that could be used for this kind of scam? I don't know, but we shouldn't be taking chances, considering how hard it is to get your life back after somebody steals your identity and your credit-worthiness.  
 
What really bugs me is that credit card companies must bear some of the blame here. If they are sending out unsolicited letters that make us vulnerable to identity theft - and then granting credit cards to identity thieves - they should be the brunt of their mistakes, not us.  
 
Bottom line: we should all have shredders in our kitchens, and shred anything that has personal information on it. That is especially true if you use a mega dumpster (as opposed to the one-per- family black ones that many homes have).