Getting back to our education mode, today we reinforce the red flags to detect you may be a victim of identity theft. With so much information, we are breaking the post into a two part series. U.S. News spoke recently provided the following suggestions:

You find errors on your bank or credit-card statement. This is likely the first warning sign you encounter. When checking your paper or online statement, you might see an unexplained or inaccurate entry—a withdraw, a check, an electronic transaction, or a purchase that you don’t recognize.
You spot errors on your credit report. You request a copy of your credit report and notice inaccurate information. The most common indicators of identity theft are a credit inquiry you don’t recognize or a new account you didn’t open.
Your account is flagged. You might receive a phone call, letter, or email from your bank or brokerage notifying about an irregularity on your account. If it comes in the form of an email, make sure that it’s a legitimate email and not a phishing email (where a fraudster masquerades as a trusted entity to try to acquire your personal information).
Debt collectors are calling. A debt collector contacts you about accounts you know nothing about or problems with existing accounts that you’re unaware of.
There’s a warrant out for your arrest. Say you get stopped for a speeding ticket, and the police officer says there’s a warrant out for your arrest for a crime you’re totally unaware of. “Someone can most certainly use your identity and impersonate you to commit a crime,” says Susan Grant, director of consumer protection at the Consumer Federation of America.
You encounter problems with your medical insurance. You go in for a medical procedure and are informed that it won’t be covered by your insurance because it’s already happened. Or, more commonly, you receive bills for medical treatments that you never had, in which case someone used your identity and insurance to receive medical treatment.

If you’re a victim of financial identity theft, the first thing to do is contact your bank or financial institution. You should then conduct a full audit of your personal finances and identify any questionable transactions. This information will be useful when it comes time to dispute the charges.

No matter what, the earlier you catch identity theft, the better—so stay vigilant.

For more ID Theft resources visit www.hvshred.com

Lately, it feels like we are getting a lot of calls from businesses tired of the hassle of slow/burnt out/ or just plain broken down office shredders. Outsourcing could be a cost-effective option depending on the volume of paper an office produces or simply the value of people hours currently being dedicated to one of the least liked tasks.

Even if you go through as little as one box of paper per month, that’s 5000 sheets. Divided by 15 sheets per minute, that’s 5 ½ hours. If the employee shredding earns as little as $8 per hour plus 25% for taxes and benefits, that means the direct cost of internally shredding 5,000 pages is nearly $45 per month. When you add in the cost of the in-house shredder, disposal of bags of paper, dust clean up and disruptions from noise, you are better off using a professional document destruction company.

Beyond relieving the frustation, outsourcing provides the added benefit of the certificate of destruction supporting a client’s due diligence with regards to the federal laws dictating consumer identity protection as well as the “feel good” aspect of recycling all shredded paperwork.

For more information, please visit www.hvshred.com

It’s important to strike a balance in our goals to save money and the environment but still maintain sound business practices. One of the easiest things to do is to work on reducing printing and paper consumption. It is possible to take a good thing too far with potentially dangerous consequences.

Many companies have a policy to reuse printed paper to save money and trees. Printing on the backsides of misprints or obsolete records is a great way to recycle.

The critical factor is to make sure the paper is appropriate for this type of recycling. Some documents are more sensitive than others and should not be handled by lower level staff. Any paperwork with confidential information should be shred and/or recycled right away.

By all means, save paper and save trees—just be sure private information stays private.

For more ideas for recycling as well as secured document management, please visit www.hvshred.com

Again, courtesy of Stop.Think.Connect.org, here are some valuable resources if you think your computer or personal information has been compromised. The following is a list of agencies equipped to help fight cyber-crime. You can file a complaint about Internet-related frauds, scams, and suspicious activity with the following organizations.

• The Federal Trade Commission – The Federal Trade Commission is the nation’s consumer protection agency and collects complaints about fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices.
• spam@uce.gov – If you receive an email that you think may be a scam, forward it to the FTC and it will be stored in a database that law enforcement agencies use to generate legal cases.
• Your State Attorney General – In addition to the FTC, you can also file a complaint with your state Attorney General’s office if you think you may be a victim of fraud. Your state Attorney General’s office handles a wide range of complaints related to consumer protection.
• The Internet Crime Complaint Center – The IC3 is a partnership between the FBI, the National White Collar Crime Center, and the Bureau of Justice Assistance, whose mission is to serve as a vehicle to receive, develop, and refer criminal complaints related to cyber crime.
• reportphishing@antiphishing.org – In addition to forwarding spam to spam@uce.gov, you can also forward spam to reportphishing@antiphishing.org. The Anti-Phishing Working Group is a consortium of ISPs, security vendors, financial institutions and law enforcement agencies that use this email to fight phishing.
• www.bbb.org – The Better Business Bureau accepts complaints from consumers against businesses or services, and is dedicated to fostering an ethical business environment.
• National Crime Prevention Council – The mission of the NCPC is to be the nation’s leader in helping people keep themselves, their families, and their communities safe from crime. To achieve this, the NCPC produces tools that communities can use to learn crime prevention strategies – including a podcast series for children and adults on the facts of cyber bullying, how to prevent it and manage it.
• National Center for Missing and Exploited Children – This nonprofit organization has a Congressionally-mandated CyberTipline as a means for reporting crimes against children. Reports may be made 24-hours a day, 7 days a week online at www.cybertipline.com or by calling 1-800-843-5678.
• Department of Justice – The DOJ’s Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section tells you where to go to report hacking, password trafficking, spam, child exploitation and other Internet harassment.

HV Shred seeks to be your source for data security news. Visit www.hvshred.com for more.

In recognition of National Internet Safety Month, the National Cyber Security Alliance offers the following tips on Internet Safety.

When it comes to Keeping your devices clean:
• Keep security software current: Having the latest security software, web browser, and operating system are the best defenses against viruses, malware, and other online threats.
• Automate software updates: Many software programs will automatically connect and update to defend against known risks. Turn on automatic updates if that’s an available option.
• Protect all devices that connect to the Internet: Along with computers, smart phones, gaming systems, and other web-enabled devices also need protection from viruses and malware.
• Plug & scan: “USBs” and other external devices can be infected by viruses and malware. Use your security software to scan them.

We’re all in this together, so be a good citizen:
• Safer for me more secure for all: What you do online has the potential to affect everyone – at home, at work and around the world. Practicing good online habits benefits the global digital community.
• Post only about others as you have them post about you.
• Help the authorities fight cyber crime: Report stolen finances or identities and other cybercrime to www.ic3.gov (Internet Crime Complaint Center), the Federal Trade Commission at http://www.onguardonline.gov/file-complaint.aspx (if it’s fraud), and to your local law enforcement or state attorney general as appropriate.

For more information, visit www.stopthinkconnect.org or www.hvshred.com
When it comes to protecting your Personal Information:
• Secure your accounts: Ask for protection beyond passwords. Many account providers now offer additional ways for you verify who you are before you conduct business on that site.
• Make passwords long and strong: Combine capital and lowercase letters with numbers and symbols to create a more secure password.
• Unique account, unique password: Separate passwords for every account helps to thwart cybercriminals.
• Write it down and keep it safe: Everyone can forget a password. Keep a list that’s stored in a safe, secure place away from your computer.
• Own your online presence: When available, set the privacy and security settings on websites to your comfort level for information sharing. It’s ok to limit who you share information with.

Though it’s a grim topic, when it comes to identity theft, it is critical. The deceased are a major target for identity thieves, and we want to help minimize the vulnerability in our community. When someone dies they are placed on the deceased list by the Social Security Administration. The credit bureaus get updates occasionally and then update their data. There is still the possibility of identity theft as the databases slowly get updated. The dead person may also have been a victim before they died. So if you find yourself as the executor of an estate here are the steps you should take:

1) Get a credit report from all three major credit reporting agencies (Experian, Equifax, TransUnion). To do this you will need a death certificate and proof you are the executor. Check for any fraudulent activity when you get the reports.

2) You will also get instructions on placing a credit hold on their file. This will stop any new credit being issued before the database is updated.

3) The credit card offers should stop once everything is updated but after several months if they are still getting them then you should follow up to make sure they have the credit hold in place.
It’s all about being proactive—more challenging in times of suffering, but perhaps all the more important.

For more on identity theft precautions, visit www.hvshred.com

Here’s another scam to be mindful of and share with you family and friends. Criminals gather publicly available data on Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites. Then, they locate a vulnerable relative — generally a grandparent — and call them pretending to be a grandchild travelling abroad and in trouble.

A typical “grandparent scam” phone call using information gleaned from the Internet: “Hi Grandma, it’s Tom. I’m in Mexico on break from (the name of the university he attends). I got into a car accident and need some money to pay for the damage (or emergency medical treatment). Can you wire me $2,000 right away? Please don’t tell my parents because they’ll just get upset.”
In some cases, the scammers pretend the grandchild was arrested and is in jail. If money is wired, the grandparents may be contacted again, and told additional money is needed.

Meanwhile, the victims’ grandchildren are actually safe at home or school.

To pull off these scams, criminals go through social media accounts, searching for information. On many accounts, scammers easily gather names, locations, schools attended, photos and other details that allow them to overcome skepticism when they call the grandparents.

According to the FBI, criminals often call “late at night or early in the morning when most people aren’t thinking that clearly.”

There are variations on the scam, the FBI reports, including:

1. Instead of the “grandchild” making the phone call, the criminal pretends to be an arresting police officer, a lawyer, a doctor at a hospital, or some other person. Sometimes, the phony grandchild talks first and then hands the phone over to an accomplice…to further spin the fake tale.
2. After perusing a soldier’s social networking page, a con artist will contact the individual’s grandparents, claiming that a problem came up during military leave that requires money to address.

If you receive such a call, here are some steps to take:
• Don’t be pressured to act quickly.
• Ask questions that would be difficult to answer unless you were actually in the family.
• Ask to contact the individual directly. Call the parents or friends to see if the grandchild is really traveling.
• Don’t send money unless you’re certain it is your family member.
• If you’ve been scammed, contact law enforcement immediately.

For more on identity theft protection, visit www.hvshred.com