Identity Fraud

Protect your personal information

There were 7,778 confirmed cases of identity fraud reported in Canada in 2006, costing victims over 16 million dollars as well as significant emotional costs.

Identity fraud refers to all types of crime in which someone wrongfully obtains and uses another person’s personal data, typically for monetary gain. It is one of the fastest growing crimes in Canada. The two major Canadian credit bureaus, Equifax and Trans Union, currently report receiving over 1,800 identity theft complaints per month.

You should already be taking these steps to protect yourself against identity theft:

• Carry as few credit cards as possible, and cancel and destroy cards you do not use.
• Never carry your social insurance card or passport with you.
• Carefully check your monthly statements and report any discrepancies immediately.
• Destroy all paperwork you no longer need, including receipts and bills.
• Do not give personal information out over the phone, through the mail, or over the Internet unless you know the person or organization you are dealing with.
• Password-protect your cards and accounts. If you must keep a written record of your passwords, keep it in a safe place and never carry such information with you.
• Order your credit report from the two major credit reporting agencies regularly. This service is provided to consumers at no cost by fax, mail, or in person.

Additional precautions you can take to minimize the risk to you:

• Contact your utility companies and creditors immediately if your bills do not arrive as expected.
• When you order checks, have only your initial (instead of full name) and last name put on them.
• Instead of signing the back of your credit cards, write “photo id required.”
• If paying your credit card bills by cheque, do not put the complete account number on the cheque. Instead, put only the last four numbers. The credit card company knows the rest of the number.
• If you put a phone number on your cheques, put your work or cell phone number instead of your home phone. Consider using a P.O. Box or your work address instead of your home address..
• Place the contents of your wallet on a photocopier. Copy both sides of each license, credit card, bank card, etc. In case your wallet is lost or stolen, you will know exactly 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.
• When you check out of a hotel that uses cards for keys, do not turn the cards in. Take them with you and destroy them. The cards contain all of the information you gave the hotel, including address, credit card numbers and expiry dates. Someone with a card reader, or an employee of the hotel, can easily access all your information.

If think you may be a victim of identity theft, immediately:

1. Contact your bank or credit card company and the two major credit reporting agencies. Have a fraud alert placed on your name and Social Insurance number. This alert informs any company that checks your credit that your information was stolen, and they have to contact you by phone to authorize any new credit.
2. File a report with your local police. A creditor who mistakenly believes that you are the person responsible for a fraudulent transaction may request a copy of the police report before correcting your account or record.
3. Report the theft to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Call Centre run jointly by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), and the Government of Canada.

Important phone numbers:Anti-Fraud Call Centre 1-888-495-8501
Equifax credit reporting 1-800-465-7166
Trans Union credit reporting 1-877-525-3823

For more information on identity theft and how you can protect yourself, speak to your Bick Financial advisor.