Stop Credit Card Offers and Reduce Risk of Identity Theft

2008-02-07T19:39:00Z

One of my new year’s resolutions was to try to get my own identity theft house in better order. One of the biggest things you are advised to do is to shred all of these hundreds of credit card offers you get in the mail every year. Supposedly someone going thru your trash can take that info and easily steal your identity.

Over the holidays I was reading a reputable monthly publication that advised to go to optoutprescreen.com to stop receiving these nuisance credit card offers. I thought, okay I will start today. But when I googled this website I found several things that caught my eye. If you go to www.gripe2ed.com/scoop/story/2005/4/11/11737/1557 you will find out what I am talking about.

It appears that the opt out website is run by the four major credit card reporting agencies. The consensus is that this process does not work and may even create more unsolicited offers. After reading more I was not real impressed with their privacy agreement. I did find another solution to these unsolicited credit card offers. Since there is a return envelope with a bar code that is attached to you as a consumer, you can send the solicitor the offer back (after running thru the shredder). They will have to pay the postage only if you send it back to them. If enough people do this the solicitors might get the idea and stop sending them to you. I have been doing this now for almost a month and it appears that these solicitations have slowed a little. (wishful thinking maybe).

Identity theft is a very real threat to each and every one of us. Take the necessary precautions, and shred all documents before throwing them in the trash that have anything tying your name to a credit card, utility billing, medical receipts, etc., etc. Post office boxes on the side of the road may become obsolete in a few years and everyone will pick up mail at cluster boxes with security locks on them. However as more and more of our life is entered electronically, the risk of identity theft rises. Keep a watchful eye and be careful.

~douglas bachtel