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We are traveling with a full house
this week on our Import-Export Expedition so my mind is a bit more
honed for security. This site reported at PASSPORT
IDEAS how
Houston customs officers lost my passport. The message stressed
how vital it is to keep your eye on this document and to have backup
ID data when you travel.
Here’s a market we’ll visit on the export expedition.
Readers shared some interesting insights on this that I now pass
onto to you.
“Gary, after reading your responses to your Passport Nightmare,
I thought it was appropriate to forward an e-mail I received about
a similar nightmare, from a corporate attorney. Read below.
“1.The next time you order checks have
only your initials (instead of first name) and last
name put on them. If someone takes
your checkbook, they will not know if you sign your checks with
just your initials or your first name, but your bank will know
how you sign your checks.
“2. Do not sign the
back of your credit cards. Instead, put "PHOTO ID REQUIRED."
“3. When you are writing checks to pay on your credit card
accounts, DO NOT put the complete account
number on the "For" line.
Instead, just put the last four numbers. The credit card company
knows the rest of the number, and anyone who might be handling
your check as it passes through all the check-processing channels
will not have access to it.
“4. Put your work phone
# on your checks instead of your
home phone. If you have a PO Box, use that instead of your home
address. If you do not have a PO Box, use your work address. Never
have your SS# printed on your checks, (DUH!). You can add it if
it is necessary. However, if you have it printed, anyone can get
it.
“5. Place the contents of your wallet on a photocopy machine.
Do both sides of each license, credit card, etc. You will know
what you had in your wallet and all of the account numbers and
phone numbers to call and cancel. Keep the photocopy in a safe
place. Also carry a photocopy of your passport when traveling either
here or abroad.
“6. When you check out of a hotel that uses cards for keys
(and they all seem to do that now), do not
turn the "keys" in.
Take them with you and destroy them. Those little cards have on
them all of the information you gave the hotel, including address
and credit card numbers and expiration dates. Someone with a card
reader, or employee of the hotel, can access all that information
with no problem whatsoever.”
Gary
P.S. Learn how to earn anywhere you travel. Join Merri and me
and our Ecuador
Import-Export Expedition.
This reader also shared some critical information
to limit the damage in case your wallet
is stolen:
“1. We have been told we should cancel our credit cards
immediately. The key is having the toll free numbers and your card
numbers handy so you know whom to call. Keep those where you can
find them.
“2. File a police report immediately in the jurisdiction
where your credit cards, etc., were stolen. This proves to credit
providers you were diligent, and this is a first step toward an
investigation (if there ever is one). However, here is what is
perhaps most important of all (I never even thought to do this.)
“3. Call the three national credit reporting
organizations immediately to place a fraud alert on your name
and Social Security number. I had never heard of doing that until
advised by a bank that called to tell me an application for credit
was made over the Internet in my name. The alert means any company
that checks your credit knows your information was stolen, and
they have to contact you by phone to authorize new credit. By
the time I was advised to do this, almost two weeks after the theft,
all the damage had been done. There are records of all the credit
checks initiated by the thieves' purchases! None of which I knew
about before placing the alert. Since then, no additional damage
has been done, and the thieves threw my wallet away this weekend
(someone turned it in). It seems to have stopped them dead in
their tracks.
“Here are the numbers you always need to
contact about your wallet and contents being stolen:
1.) Equifax: 1-800-525-6285
2.) Experian (formerly TRW): 1-888-397-3742
3.) TransUnion: 1-800-680-7289
4.) Social Security Administration (fraud line): 1-800-269-0271”
This is good advice!
Until next message, I send good travels and international investments
to you!
Gary
P.S. Learn more about how to develop investing
philosophies. Join Merri, Thomas Fischer of Jyske Bank and me at
our next International
Business and Investing Made EZ course in
North Carolina.
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