ID Theft Prevention

and joining me today on the show is like coach capi joe polycalaria capi joe i am terrific how about you paul hey i'm doing good you know i we talked a lot before we went on here you got me hooked on doubt now be at one time which i end up by that dvd collection and i'm telling you if this is us on nbc that's a great show and i'm trying to get you hooked on it and uh we talk about a lot of interesting things other than business when we're that's what friends do right that is correct and we share a lot we help each other we do each other we share and i'm excited to check out that show i have to admit i've never never watched it but i'm intrigued you're the second person that mentioned it so i am putting that on the top of my to-do list i do want to check it out well it's definitely worth the time i think and i think i can't wait to see what you think of it and uh speaking of things we need to remember and be mindful of and and do double checks on is when it comes to id theft and that's uh the basis of today's program with you uh kind of visiting some things and i know you've got some new resources to cover with us through the show today so a lot here to cover you know what there is there is and i think the bottom line is and it's something that you and i talk about a lot is to never get complacent absolutely that's a favorite word non-favorite word don't go there because when you do you make things harder you lose track you become unaware you let your guard down um but before we get into identity theft i just want to take one minute to thank everyone that contacted me to follow up on financial stress financial stress is is very very real if we talked about recently and i want to encourage anyone you know to follow up to reach out to me to contact me and have a real discussion about it you know there's there's nothing judgmental about it but the more that you can learn and find out and get direction the better off you are really in every area of your life absolutely um yeah i'm glad that the the more it's getting out and people are getting in touch with you and there's many ways people can reach out to you Kathy Joan before we get started today let people know what's the easiest way any listeners if they want to get in touch with you right the best way to go to my website which is my name KathyJopolic.com k-a-t-h-y-j-o-p-o-l-l-a-c-k.com and there is a contact me section with my phone number and a contact me form that you can send me a quick message if you don't reach me by phone and you try just leave me a voicemail and i will definitely get back to you but i really do encourage those types of conversations and i'm just dressed i don't have all the answers i don't know the answers but we can have an intelligent conversation about what's going on and help someone maybe get some direction with things that are happening well you definitely help make all of this less scary Kathy Jo i will admit that because you've helped me with many things and as a listeners too because i've shared many of my journeys still on lots of journeys and can't wait to share all of that uh as time continues to pass but you do help make it all less scary i will admit that well thank you that's a sincere compliment and i really appreciate that and i guess that's something i never thought about but truly i listen to people and i never want them to be afraid to share with me so that we can you know look at what options are you know what can you do and that's nice to know if you can if i can help remove that element of fear so that things are not so scary and you know let me ask you something Paul you're scared of something how many times is it really as scary as you thought usually usually it's not it ends up not being i'm like well that wasn't as bad as i was making it out to be or thought it was going to be or was worried you know it doesn't it turns out it's not you know and that's a really good point to make so people need to have that trusted person or that unbiased person that maybe they can share that with and all of a sudden it sort of takes the energy out of that fear it's not as scary anymore why don't you verbalize it and share it and talk about it loses its power and you know you're back in control again you really are in nowadays a catholic turn on the news you know i do news here identity theft and just different ways that they're trying to find ways to get us it's just unbelievable to me and you always have to be mindful be proactive and and like you said don't get complacent because if you do and it just takes a little bit of time for them to really cause a big headache that'll cause you probably days to get turned back around right but don't be afraid of it right now throw complacency out the window we're gonna talk about i d theft not so much into real real nitty specifics fool some resources some general things that maybe we haven't looked at but it's not going away so we really need to look at what we can do and take charge because nobody's gonna do it for us but i like a word you used awareness awareness you know i like that word too i like awareness i would take that any day over complacency absolutely and awareness tells you you need to be aware but awareness isn't scary you know it's serious but awareness it just it helps i guess i think it diffuses the scariness the more you know the less scary something is diffuses i like that diffuses i like that word too and you can tell we have a lot of fun when we fucking nothing obviously is scripted no no it's not and i like how we have certain words we both like and uh it's just i like that play on words and we have a lot of fun and we learn a lot together we can mention and i was doing a little research um do you know when we first started talking about identity theft oh wow she'll have to dust out the cobwebs in my mind there Kathy Jo and uh i know we it's been several years we've been it has been several how about like 2009 wow is that when we first started yes and what does that tell you this is not going away here it is 2017 and it's prevalent more than ever it's not going away it continues to evolve it does that's another word i like well we haven't made too much fun and you know i guess what got me started on this subject was that we really need to revisit it because it's hammering us it's trying to sneak into our lives now we can't prevent it and i want to tell everyone there's no way to totally prevent it but you can reduce the risk and minimize impact and that's really the goal is reduce risk and minimize impact but every day i bet i get three to six fishing scams in my email frustrating isn't it yes so you know first and foremost we're talking about raising awareness don't be so easy to click on things respond to things and give out your information don't respond um the lead and call the organization call the company or email them appropriately not using the link in your email and i know so often too the IRS they're good about uh trying to get people's personal information make you think that that's what it is in the IRS never emails you uh and there's a lot of those fishing schemes going around the document looks like it's from the IRS and they'll tell you hey you've got more of a refund coming send us this information don't do that and i'm glad that you said that because it is everywhere and i am constantly updating my website and there's a whole section on my website it's called links products and resources there's a specific section on identity theft free info and links and with regard to tax related identity theft i have a linked information from the FTC on tax related identity theft so i have updated this with some really cool things that i want to talk about and when we talk about email and technology i want to talk a little bit about that think about your password i am still talking to people that use the same password for everything it's stop using one one one or one two three four a b c at people need to you need to have a combination only that you're going let's use password that's a password yeah that's a terrible one that is a terrible one and stop using the same password for everything if you want to use something similar you've got to change it up somehow you have to get creative i have a couple of really good links on my website how to pick a secure password so if you're scratching you're thinking i don't know where to go with this i'll do something you've always got to do something as opposed to nothing and i try to uh catty jot try to take and change mine this may not be often enough but i usually six months every six months try to make a round of changing my passwords unless it looks like something suspicious then i you know would do it more often but i try to six months to it no longer than a year do i leave them the same good good and you change them all i do i i'm and i'll tell you what i have a little uh you know a notebook at home that i keep i jot down and i actually will have a place where i have to write them down and i hide it only where i know where it is um and because sometimes there's so many passwords it's easy to forget it is it certainly is it certainly is so for starters think about your password i'm glad you are paul that's very important please don't use something simple please don't use the same password you're making it easy for these scammers why make it easy to give away your information and your identity that's silly and you think about you lock your house and car don't you yes yep so why wouldn't you lock down your personal information on the internet and services that you're using do you lock your smartphone do you have an auto lock feature yeah i i do have to enter a uh the password to get into my phone every time excellent excellent excellent i'll never forget a very highly secure place that i worked several years ago what wasn't that many years ago um that everybody had their smartphones out in the open totally unlocked they left them unsecured and just walked away for hours and left their their phones sitting there that's a very bad idea and they were unlocked you wouldn't do that to your home so why would you do that to your uh smartphone that's a good point one i think of some people i don't know how but easily overlook that they do they do i think because we have not shifted to total awareness and it's that old school not thinking big and broad and that's what i want to get listeners to think about broadening their scope of awareness and you know what again we're talking with life coach catholic today on weekend focus and cathy joe another thing and i thought of you and i was guilty of this i didn't say why do you need this or correct them i had a doctor appointment recently they what's your social security number you know i'm just not thinking i just blurted it right out into and then i thought afterwards why did they need that well did you go back and ask i didn't guilty is charged okay well that's okay if i learned again the woman looked like uh you know she may not have been the most friendliest so i thought you know the fewer words i needed to say to her probably would have been better because i would have just been a rough day i think for everybody all the way around oh paul you're too funny but look think about what you just said so you were a little bit afraid you didn't she seemed a little frightful and you didn't want to rock the boat exactly you gave over your social security did i gave in i was you know i was uh intimidated i guess well we're all human for sure and nobody has their guard up a hundred percent of the time but that's an excellent lesson and what i do recommend and we've talked about it a hundred times the first time i'll probably not a hundred times a few times the first time you do it it's going to roll off your mouth so practice it and i say to him no i don't feel comfortable giving my social security number to you why do you need it are you going to protect it and can i give you something else in its place and most of them can verify you buy when you give them your name and then you've got a phone number your home address there are other ways they can verify sometimes i think they just use that to the lazy way of finding information i agree and that's not what social security numbers were designed for exactly oh don't do it good lesson and i want you to practice that maybe that could be a challenge for you paul again front of the mirror and practice that i don't feel comfortable giving you my social security number tell me why you need it and what you're going to do to protect it and can i give you something else in its place got it i got it and if she still insists i'm giving her your phone number i'm going to tell her to call you up please i don't say because Kathy jose said so that's all they need to know hey jose said so and she's gonna say who is Kathy jose said i'm going to be like just take my word for it is she straighten you out in a second right well i would just probably i tried it and then if somebody gives me you know a little pushback i'll try to educate them on identity theft and help prevalent it is and we really have to guard our information i'm not being smart sure being in control of my personal information because when it's out there it's much harder to get back and i told you before we went on the air i you know a lot of documents and things that i no longer need no that i'm not going to need i maybe statements bank statements and things i get the paper shredder out and shred that stuff through um usually i get the pile pile up a little bit or collect it for about a week than i get to sit down with the paper shredder great great great wonderful so some of that stuff's hard to destroy and i thought i just i don't want to just crumble it up or you know maybe rip it up once and throw it in a trash because that stuff can be pieced back together it can't do go through our garbage they do it dumpster diving put pickings get things pieced things together so they'll make life more difficult we're talking about raising awareness making life easier so we have more time for the things we enjoy not to be picking up the pieces after an identity thief wreak havoc on it absolutely your laptop how about a password on your laptop do you have a that um lock after so much time it does great great great great because we can't just think about our phones we have to think about our laptop as well as in our tablets too pardon me our tablets too like the ipad and different uh you know tablets that we use mine i have a security code on mine too excellent good job on that good job something else i hear a lot about is people that are still continuing to use debit cards okay okay i'm still hearing this uh i want to really caution people when i have an excellent video on my website it is credit cards versus debit cards what you need to know and i go back to a story of a young man that told me he had locked up his wallet in a locker he was at a gym and his locker was broken into his debit card was stolen and within a matter of less than 24 hours his bank account was drained and all of his uh bill started bouncing but he had paid because the money was drained it's not like a credit card a credit card you can distribute the charges it's not coming right out of your bank account now it took him a long time to get his funds back but you know how much i don't even know how much time he spent trying to get those late charges that money back wow fix all of that frustrating it is and it's your money and think about what happened with target in a couple years target shoppers many people use their debit card um had access direct access to their bank account don't give over that information your rights are much better and protect you much better with credit cards so if you're going to shop and use something plastic and you obviously cash is much safer but use a credit card and that brings me to something else and this has been coming up a lot and i'm sure you can weigh in on this okay is using safer methods online ultimately never i'd say never never never use a debit card online have one credit card that you use only for online purchase but if you want to use a credit card but how about using safer methods like paypal and google wallet that really um protect your information gotcha that would be a good idea yeah yeah because i don't use that i don't use those methods um guilty is charged i'll use either of my you know my bank card or credit card even to make online purchases and i would say think about that paul put that on your challenge it lists stop using debit cards online watch my video well it's not my video but watch the video i was gonna say i didn't know you made videos i said man she's stepping up even more here on me because i call it on the go with Kathy joe so i'm gonna work on that paul i promised that this video is actually put out and i love the privacy rights clearing house and i'm gonna talk about that a little bit more but they have an excellent video and i have a link on my website um so i do encourage you don't we work so hard for our money why do we want to make it easy to give it away absolutely and in a split second it can be gone it can it can so check that out for sure and i've been trying to use more paypal google wallet some things that i'm hearing um and really trying to use more of it if you're going to use plastic no debit card one credit card if you have to shut it down so it does not affect anything else that you're doing and in one time at kathy joe and i i guess this is kind of cross-as-line you're calling and being i guess it's not you're not exactly telling the whole story but i remember i don't remember it's been several years and there was something i had my credit card number involved involved with and i canceled it but i wasn't sure that they i can't remember what it was um that i canceled and i'm thinking myself they're still going to take money out of this because something i couldn't get a hold of anybody and i i wish i could remember exactly what it was i turned around and called the credit card company and reported that i when i was claiming i must have accidentally threw my card in a trash i can no longer find it could you know stop that and send me out a new card and everything so they did so that was in my mind a way of getting rid of whatever i didn't have to worry about them because when they sent me the new card it was a different number and everything and different code so the other card they deactivated that for me oh then you could no longer get charged for that really an unauthorized purchase exactly and i can't remember exactly what that was i'll have to think of them the next show we might you know what that was that people can watch out for but it's been several years it just kind of i guess the use the word i freaked me out and i thought well i can call i believe it was capital one and i called them and said you know what i think while cleaning i threw this card i should have just said i think there's some chart but i just didn't want to go into that and i knew the money hadn't been it was supposed to come out and i had canceled it didn't get a confirmation number and so i just called and reported my card that i had lost it lost it and got a new one and i thought that i know i thought i did and you bring up something very very good here that i want to touch on if you're credit card or bank account is ever compromised i feel that the number one thing to do is close that account and get a new account number sometimes institutions are reluctant i don't know whether it costs it probably cost the money and time to read close and reissue a new account if consumers it's in our best interest to close totally close that account and get a new account totally a new account number and start off with a new pin number but a totally new account number so good for you for finding a way to get that that done because we're our best advocate we are and i hated twisting it around like that so to speak but i thought i i didn't want to go through but we'll keep watch on it and i just thought no i just need this to be done so i can rest peacefully and in peace of mind and i'm going to try to say even if you know are you really sure it was conned for my let's not issue it no and i'd had to be firm a few times um and i know i probably don't have much trouble with that but i sometimes i struggle with that and i've said no i want it close and i want a new account number period absolutely so good advice there again we're talking with life coach catholic today on weekend focus i've got a few minutes left catholic joe i went else when it comes to just being aware and what we can do watch those atm watch those um gas stations when you're pumping gas and swiping your card be alert look for skimmers go to the same place know your surroundings and if you think you've been a victim or you get an email that says you've been a victim of a data breach i have some great links that i want to review that are just on my website that you can do catholic dot com one of them is okay one of them is um i apologize what to do if you receive a data breach notice there are very quick steps that you can take if you find out that you have been a victim of a data breach click on that it goes to a wonderful link i've got a lot of information like that from privacy rights clearinghouse and the ftc also on there and i want to talk just briefly about the federal trade commission there's my entire identity theft information warehouse or website with all sorts of resources forms and links that will guide you through the process get the tools that you need to know about to be armed to be aware to be a smart consumer there's also if i mentioned the tax related theft information you know you're concerned about your income tax what to do also how to recover from identity theft and that's marked new on my website and i can't believe that i can imagine that's an easy process no but you want to know where it is and know how to access it so if you needed it there so you're not scrambling a couple of things that i also want to mention and again go to the website go to resources and links identity theft you will see these listed one of our favorite things that we didn't get into a lot of detail about or even mentioned i want to mention it is the identity theft IQ quiz yes take it that is something ongoing to keep yourself aware and the link is on my site and all those links on your site should you know what we like free so there's nothing you know people can you know there's a lot of worksheets and things you can do to print stuff out budgets and things you're you're what and i've used those before in the past i know i've told you on the show but you didn't know at the time i was going to your website printing out some things and doing budgets and and using the tools that were on your website unbeknownst to you i did it wonderful and that's what it's there for is there to be used something i want to mention is taking steps to increase your privacy look for ways to opt out of offers a big one is the credit offers and i'll give the phone number it's also on my website the less information it's swirling around out there about us the better and the opt out for credit offers number is 888-567-868-888-567-868-888 you can opt out of marketing calls you want to increase your privacy absolutely again life coach Kathy Joe Pollock today on weekend focus your website's at KathyJoe Pollock dot com as you've been talking about lots of different tips and information worksheets things that people can get a lot of valuable information there can't wait till you start adding videos to that Kathy Joe that you make my video right i do have fun about credit cards versus debit cards so look for ways to increase your privacy look beyond what you're looking at really raise that awareness i think we should do some weekend focus uh podcast with video uh of us Kathy Joe explaining down and talking about things and before and after the show wouldn't that be fun that would be that would be really hilarious i think we could get your mom to sit in with us on those one oh i think she would love that trace is going to thank you for mentioning that oh you are so funny so look for that information look for the federal trade commission identity theft info website there are also 10 opt-out to increase privacy and a hundred advanced tips that i just put on there frequently people were coming to me and saying i've got a good resource to share where you put it on your website and i'll take a look and i just added that a hundred advanced tips to reduce i'd be theft perfect and uh again Kathy Joe i always appreciate you taking time to be with us on the show time flies and i want to thank you know i get a lot of calls through the weekend things i know uh Gary and David and of course our buddy Nancy a lot of loyal listeners out there to show and they'll tell me what a great job we do and i i never really give shout outs enough to people i and but i you can't do it without them and i thank them for being loyal and listening and hopefully i don't scare people way too bad no you never do open the door and hopefully diffuse those fears and scariest and i do encourage people to have that conversation to talk with me talk with you open that door absolutely one last time and Kathy Joe give us your website Kathy Joe Pollack dot com k-a-t-h-y-j-o-l-l-l-a-c-k dot com check out the links products and resource section just click it and you can go right to the identity theft free info link all right well Kathy Joe i always appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule i say that each and every time but i do mean that uh because i know you're very very busy lots of seminars and a lot of good things going on with you and and always uh enjoy being on the journey with you and glad that things are going well and i appreciate you squeezing us in here on the show oh you know and i am grateful to you for giving me this opportunity i love to help people i truly truly do and this is a great way to get the word out all right Kathy Joe thank you so much take care