2. Try to maintain constant body contact with your wallet or purse that holds any of your ID.

3. On the back of each credit card I write “Demand photo ID” immediately when it arrives at my address. I do that rather than signing it. This requires that a vendor check another form of identity. As my wife also says, that “doesn’t place your signature in the hands of an unscrupulous individual in the event you lose your card.”

4. I am only willing to carry one credit card which has my photo on it. Coupled with the photo on my driver’s license, that feels pretty safe. Unfortunately, that same card has my signature imbedded in the front of the plastic credit card. Given my wife's words of wisdom, it might be wise to request your photo on your card but without the imbedded signature.

5. In a safe and separate file we keep a copy of the front and back of every credit card, debit card and other form of ID. Store that safely where it is easy to access quickly. Keep it separate from other financial data. Do NOT carry it on your person as it would severely compromise your vulnerability if you were to lose it.

6. We keep a record of User ID and passwords for accounts in another safe file that is separate from all other financial data. NEVER carry this information with you.

7. One reason for keeping this record collected and handy is that we can change the User ID and passwords often.

8. We choose a User ID and password which are very obtuse so it will be difficult to figure out. Use 8 to 16 characters with a combination of numbers, small case letters and large case letters. This will make it much more difficult for a potential thief to decipher the combination needed to access your accounts.

9. Since that, unfortunately, doesn't seem to hold for ATM machines, I almost never use one. If you use an ATM, use extreme care until we are able to influence a change in ATMs to longer and more complex passwords. For example, refuse to use it if anyone is waiting nearby. Also, hover over it so no one can see or even guess which keys you have pressed.

10. We collect and bring home all receipts and carbon copies. Consider writing to decision-makers in any company that still prints a receipt with your full credit card number on it. Ask them to change that policy! It leave you too vulnerable. As my wife says, “When you sign a credit slip that has carbons, remove the carbons and rip them up.

11. Buy a shredder. Shred all receipts and other documents that are not essential to your records. Shred all unused credit card applications that come to your address. Shred all unused promotional offers. Shred all papers that are not essential to your records and which have your identifying data on them. Shred. Shred. Shred.

12. Don't carry anything with your social security number on it. Memorize it.

13. Did you know it is illegal for a clerk to write your credit card number on your check? Experts indicate it is fine to use a credit card for additional information when writing a check, however.

14. Apparently, only the last 4 digits of your credit or debit card are necessary to ensure proper processing of your payments. Therefore, my wife suggests that you remember this when making credit card payments.

15. Experts also recommend buying a lockable mailbox or post office box for incoming mail. All outgoing mail must be placed in a US Postal Service box, not in your box at the curb. It is particularly dangerous to leave your outgoing payments in your mailbox outside the door of your residence.

16. I have checks delivered by direct deposit into my bank account. With the rapid action required to respond to the recent ID theft, which meant that two checks will have to be mailed to my post office box while the payer’s records get updated. That was a minor inconvenience.

17. Until a few more safeguards are put in place, I will also always walk up to the bank counter with checks which have been handed to me. Two checks I placed in the night deposit box a few months ago are still lost. What a mystery! That same exact deposit box had saved me a ton of time across the years! How that could ever have happened may never be solved. So heed the wise counsel of my wife: “Check washing is a popular form of theft. Individuals will wash the payee name off of the check leaving your signature intact, then rewrite your check to ‘Cash’ or another payee of their choosing.” For this reason she counsels that you get copies of your check or statements electronically so that they cannot be stolen in snail mail.

18. Are you as “up to here” as I am with phone calls saying, “Congratulations! You’ve been pre-approved for…” Never respond to phone calls requesting ID or account information. Never give any identifying data over the phone! The only exception to that is when you have called a number you know gets you through to the bank or vendor of your choice.

19. Furthermore, never respond to an email that requests identifying data. NEVER. No matter how real it appears to be. Phishing refers to the criminal activity of using emails or pop ups which look like they are from your bank or other trusted company to entice you to go to a dummy site and give your identifying data and account information. It’s pretty frightening to see how realistic those emails can appear to be. For example, scam artists can simply right click on emblems or logos on most sites and then “Save Target As” so they can put this logo into a file on their computer. Then the scam artists can simply insert that logo into a document. This could give the impression that the document actually came from the owner of the logo. We received one of these only a few days ago. At the top was a very convincing trademark used by “WellKnownBank” (the name has been changed to protect the innocent). There were three lines of text followed by a link that looked like it went to “WellKnownBank.com.” At the base in the same color background was “© Copyright 2004, WellKnownBank, Inc. All Rights Reserved.” This is where you can help pave the internet highway and possibly help identify some of the holes dug by such scam demons. DO NOT CLICK ON THAT LINK! Hover you cursor over it so that the REAL web address will show up in the status bar at the base of your screen. Here’s why. What you see is not necessarily what you get. The entire image in the email we received had been programmed to click forward to a bogus site. The perpetrators of the scam had used materials from the bank site to make it look like an actual site of WellKnownBank. Banks don’t send out emails like that asking you to follow a link to a site and give account information. Take the safe approach. No matter how real the email may appear to be. Simply pass your cursor over the link and copy down the address in the status bar at the base of your screen – it will help identify the host site of this bogus site which was posted by criminals. Your role in helping pave the holes in the internet highway is to forward this email to the abuse or fraud department of the bank they are pretending to be. However, including the REAL address you copied at the base of your screen will be invaluable in tracking down the criminals. Remember, an ounce of prevention could be worth a tidy little sum of multiple resources. So start now to practice finding the address by putting your cursor over a link. Do not click. Do not go to the site. Do not fill in any information. Do not reply. But do forward the email and address to the fraud department and to spam@uce.gov. Help send the criminal to their just end.

20. Regularly check to be sure all transactions are legitimate with you bank, credit and debit card. With the printed statements this pretty much limits you to once a month unless you phone in episodically. One reason I prefer online banking is that it allows me access daily. If I hadn’t done my online banking on Thursday after three fraudulent activities had been done against my accounts within the previous 24 hours, a great deal more damage could have been done.

21. Exercise caution when setting up recurring billing. One of my vendors sends a monthly receipt. Sounds like a good deal, doesn’t it? However, at the base of the email receipt they put my User ID and password in case I want to modify my account. An email is essentially a public document. Since everything else this vendor does is particularly advantageous, I have tried reason. My 4^th request to stop compromising my security by putting the User ID and password in the monthly receipt was responded to by saying that I was the only person out of 22,000 in four years to have a problem so adjust “or submit a cancellation request.” Consider it done.

22. Request your free yearly credit report. Do that on a regular basis. Get your Free 3-1 Credit Report Here or call TransUnion, Experian or Equifax. Review these closely. You may need to remove some incorrect information.

23. Immediately report lost or stolen credit cards and debit cards.

24. Have at least a software firewall program. Some people are having a computer professional install a hardware firewall as well. These firewalls decrease the ability of anyone else to access your hard drive.

25.Use a to a good spyware program. That will alert you to attempts to access your hard drive. My internet guru suggests deleting all cookies about every six months to clear out the unused ones.