5 Key Things To Keep Your Money And Your Business Safe From Credit Or Identity Theft

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Ep. 178: 5 Key Things To Keep Your Money And Your Business Safe From Credit Or Identity Theft

In this episode I dive into the crucial topic of identity and credit card theft. With a shocking 552,000 cases reported in the first half of 2024 alone, it’s essential to protect yourself. I’ll share practical steps like using secure passwords, enabling multi-factor authentication, and utilizing identity theft monitoring.

We’ll also discuss the benefits of credit freezes and safeguarding your children’s credit. By implementing these simple yet effective measures, you can safeguard your finances and hard-earned money. Tune in for actionable tips to help you stay protected in today’s digital age.

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• Cashflow Unlocked: https://aimeecerka.com/cashflow
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• Instagram: https://instagram.com/aimeecerka

Podcast Key Points

0:00 – Episode Overview
1:52 – Survival Instinct
2:53 – Secure Passwords
4:27 – 2FA Necessary To Cover Your Butt
5:16 – Credit Monitoring & Freezing Your Credit
8:02 – Protecting Your Kids Credit As Well

Identity Theft is Rising in 2024

In the first half of 2024, there was 552,000 cases of identity theft reported. This is already on track to exceed 2023. So what can you do to make sure that you’re prepared beforehand that your identity can’t be stolen? Like steps that you can take there to protect yourself. And then afterwards, you know, maybe some steps that we need to if your identity is stolen, what you should do.

That’s what we’re going to talk about today, especially when it comes to credit card theft as well. So identity credit card theft, that’s what we’re going to get to today. Let’s go. This is the your money your life podcast.

Steps to Protect Yourself from Identity Theft

Welcome back to the year money your life podcast. Today we’re talking about identity theft, credit card theft, all the things that we unfortunately have to be aware of in this day and age. We’ve been wrapping up the series talking about the economy, inflation, the upcoming election, all of those things what we need to do to prepare.

And unfortunately, when that fear and uncertainty shows up, people tend to go towards more of the negative things that we’re not supposed to do, like sealing people’s identity as a coping mechanism and a survival instinct. So what do you need to do? We have to be prepared, right?

So I’ve got five, four things here that I want you to be mindful of to help protect yourself.

First: Use Secure Passwords

They’re really simple to do. Right. As always, we got to make sure that we’re staying on top of this and protecting ourselves. This is a defensive strategy because we have to take care of what we’ve got. Okay? So first things, please, for the love of, just, I don’t know what? Use secure passwords.

Please stop using your dog’s name or your kid’s name and the kid’s birthday or whatever else. Secure passwords. A password app password manager, like

Lastpass is what I use and recommend, because then you have to remember the one password, your master password, and then it stores all the other passwords for you, making sure they’re secure.

Second: Multifactor Authentication

It fills it. It’s really simple to use once you get it set up. And it’s not one thing that I want you to sit down and just move all your passwords into Lastpass. This is one that you’ll set up, and then as you log into things, you’ll add them into Lastpass and then hopefully update. It’s got like this whole security challenge thing in there, too, so you can see how secure you are with your passwords, if you’re reusing passwords, et cetera.

So utilize secure passwords, because when we hear of people hacking, you know, whatever it might be, different shopping networks or whatever, and they’ve got access to everybody’s usernames and passwords.

What they do is they create a massive database, and then as they hack different platforms, they update the database so that it’s all included so they can tell if you reuse passwords like that. And they’re more likely, it’s easier to sell it because you’re more likely to use the same password.

Utilize Identity Theft Protection Tools

Okay, so first thing, utilize secure passwords. I would recommend a password management app like Lastpass. Second thing, multifactor authentication. I know it can be a little bit of a pain in the butt when you’re trying to get into something, but this is another layer of protection. So even if the hacker gets your password, they wouldn’t. They would need your phone to be able to verify and access the account, whether it’s sending you the code or it’s sending you a text message, whatever it might be. Turning on multifactor authentication. This is huge, especially for social media.

Monitor Your Credit Regularly

This is like one way that I see you get your butt saved all the time because they can’t get into the account without the multifactor authentication. Again, not something that you have to sit there and sit down and go find multifactor authentication for all the things one step at a time. If it’s available, add it on, then you got it. All right.

Third thing, identity theft monitoring at a minimum. This isn’t even really a minimum, but checking your credit report annually, I think it’s free. Credit report.com gives you the annual you get to pull your credit report one time a year for free.

If you’re nothing planning on applying for credit anytime soon? It’s probably a good idea right now to put a credit freeze.

Consider a Credit Freeze and Identity Theft Insurance

So credit freeze is like a security measure that prevents the credit reporting agencies. So equifax, TransUnion and Experian from sharing your credit report with third parties. It’s totally free to do. You can turn it on and off. So what does a credit freeze do? Right.

When you go to apply for a new credit card, account, loan, whatever it might be, the institution will run your name and your Social Security number to confirm your identity and to be able to view the credit file. Right. Well, when you have the credit freeze, they’re not able to check it, so they can’t approve the account.

Protect Your Children’s Identity Too

If someone attempts to open an account under your name, your credit file can’t be accessed, then they’re more likely to have it denied, right? I guess they could still approve it, but less likely to do the credit freeze, you would have to put it with complete each, I’m sorry, complete a credit freeze, which each, each of the three bureaus.

So Equifax, Experian, transunion, you can do it online. It’s pretty quick and painless, and it’s also free. You don’t have to do it. There’s no paid, you do not have to take the paid option with any of the bureaus to put a credit freeze in place.

If you’re not going to use credit anytime soon, I would put the credit freeze in place. I’ve heard that it’s really easy to turn off and on. So maybe if you’re planning just in a couple months, go ahead and put it in place.

Shred Important Documents

Because if something happens and your identity is stolen, then we have a whole other set of things that we have to work on. Identity theft insurance to help fight against. That is also super helpful and probably encouraged.

Also, if you’re budgeting, tracking your expenses, you’re going to catch the fraud on your credit card, debit card, whatever it might be faster. So this is where, like, the budgeting system comes into play, making sure that you’re looking at the transactions that are coming through on your account, especially like with Amazon and Walmart.

I know that we have a tendency to just kind of approve things because, hey, you know, we shop there all the time, but the people that are hacking and stealing the information know that as well. So they’re shopping at those places and hoping the charges just kind of slide on by. All right.

Stay Vigilant and Take Action

And two more quick things. First off, if you have children, you can place and probably should place a freeze on your minors credit file as well. From July 21 to July of 22nd, there was 915,000 children that were victims of identity theft. The highest risk is that older teenage range like 15 to 18.

But I mean, they can go infants, they can find that and steal their identity as well. So kids probably aren’t using their credit cards. So freeze their credits. Probably a good idea.

Shred Important Documents

Lastly, making sure that you are storing shredding documents safely. I don’t know that we hear of this as much anymore, but just making sure things that have, you know, names and addresses, bank statements, even those pre authorization on the credit cards, we shred those just to make sure that we’re not making it easy for people to access our identity.

All right, this is a very tactical episode. Okay. Just being mindful of doing the things that we need to.

Tracking your expenses.

Making sure that we’re looking through this so that you can catch any fraud that’s showing up on your accounts.

Password managers for secure passwords, making it less easy for them to steal your passwords.

Simple Steps to Protect Your Money

Multi factor authentication to keep the hackers out. Identity theft monitoring, monitoring your credit. Putting a freeze on your credit. Being smart about these things. They are very simple to do.

They’re small little steps that we can take to make sure that your hard earned money, the things that you’ve worked so hard for, is protected in the long run.

All right, that’s what I’ve got for this week. We’ll see you next time.

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