Identity thieves can get your personal and financial information in a variety of ways, some simple and some very sophisticated.  This is why you need to be on your toes when it comes to protecting your information at all times.  There is one bizarre way that identity thieves will use to obtain personal and financial information that not too many people would thing they would use.  That bizarre way is to steal personal information from the dead.

Yes, the dead.  This does not mean that they go to the cemetery and take names off the headstones and apply for a driver’s license and Social Security card in a deceased person’s name that has been dead for many years.  No, they do it with a more modern twist.  The identity thieves scour the newspapers to see who has died and makes a list of them and their address.  They then go over to the home and grab any mail that is still in the mail box that no one has gotten around to getting or else they go through the garbage.  They are looking for any type of credit card receipts, utility bills, credit card statements, etc.  This may take several days or even up to a month to get these types of things.

Many times the relatives of the one who just died is still traumatized by the death and do not think about stopping the mail, picking it up, or even contacting the credit card companies and asking them to stop sending out the statement or closing the accounts because of death.

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Every year investigations by the Better Business Bureau uncover many scams.  The scams range from schemes that have been around for many years new gimmicks.   Many of the older scams are just recycled with different words or current issues are used to make them some newer. The top scam of the year, according to the Better Business Bureau, was a Phishing email claiming it was from them.  It was about a complaint, which could download malicious software.  This malicious software could mine financial accounts.

Here is an in depth look at the top scams of 2011 according to the Better Business Bureau.

• Job scams—every year the BBB sees many working from home and secret shopper scams but they cannot only kill your hopes of making money but also steal your personal information.  The websites, online applications, and scam emails look professional but how they get your personal information is to as you to fill out a report to check your credit or else a form to direct deposit your money to provide some bank information.  These forms are just a way for the identity thief to capture your sensitive personal information that can be used like your bank account number, Social Security numbers, etc.
• Lottery and sweepstakes scams–the top scam was the email that stated it was from the founder of Facebook telling you that you had won one million dollars from Facebook. Read the rest of this entry »

The transition to electronic medical records is now in full swing but they may be overlooking potential risks to patient’s safety.  The idea of using computerized medical records was sold as being a powerful tool to improve a patient’s safety in many different ways.  One way was by alerting the physician automatically if they were going to prescribe a medication the patient was allergic to.  Unfortunately these benefits should not be taken for granted because there are also identity theft risks that go along with these benefits.

If these computerized medical records are not designed and applied appropriately, it can lead to adverse consequences.  Some of the complications can range from quirky systems, medication dosing errors can happen if the technology does not communicate with a rival company’s version, computer crashes, delays in needed treatment, or overlooking signs of a fatal illness.  Due to medical errors in hospitals, there are an estimated forty-four thousand to ninety-eight thousand patient deaths a year.

Yes, hospitals have improved safety by going electronic but there is not much evidence that such improvements are being made on the heath care system as a whole.  President Obama’s administration wants most of the doctors and hospitals to switch to computerized records by the year 2015.  For the purchase of the new systems that will be needed, they are investing as much as twenty-seven billion dollars over ten years as incentive payments for them to do so.

The unemployment rate is high in every state in the United States and there are not many places hiring so when a person is offered a job they know that if they do not take it someone else will.  Scammers and identity thieves also know this so use this to their advantage in order to steal their personal information and their identity.  And it is not only the unemployed that can become a victim of a scammer or identity theft, the employed also can.

One way that an employed person can become a victim of identity theft is if a person who has access to personnel information gets fired and then in retaliation they steal personal information.  They may not do anything with it or they might sell the information to criminals who in turn resell it to illegal aliens.  They may even use it to apply for government benefits.  It is also not unusual for a scammer to put in an ad for a job that does not exist in hopes of enticing the unemployed to apply for the job and be able to obtain their personal information for the fake application.

There are identity theft protection ways that you can protect yourself from these types of scams whether you are unemployed or employed.  Here are some of the ways you can protect yourself.
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No one is immune from falling for a scam.  They can happen to any one of any age and at any stage in their life.  To help protect you from becoming a victim of a scam there are some things that you need to remember.  The best thing that you can do is remember that if sounds too good to be true it probably is and it is most likely a scam.

Protect Yourself

There are two identity theft protection ways that you can protect yourself from becoming a victim of a scam.  One of the most important things that you can do is making sure that you read the fine print not only at the bottom of the paper but anywhere that there appears to be small fine print.  In addition to the small print you should read the contract or agreement entirely before you sign it.  Scammers may use small print, sophisticated language, or asterisks to either confuse or hide the true meaning of what you are signing your name to.

You should also make sure that you guard all your personal information.  Make sure that you verify their identity if anyone asks for your personal information.  Make sure that you ask for their name, the name of their organization, the address, and the phone number.  You need to make sure that you verify this information through an outside source such as the telephone directory or their website.
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