Getting defensive

Take proactive steps to protect your identity, personal information.

GALESBURG - Lori Brittingham has first-hand experience with identity theft.

The East Galesburg resident became a victim in September when someone stole checks sent to her from her credit card company out of her mailbox. In November she noticed $6,300 of extra charges on her statement.

"(Whoever did it) called the credit card company and said they were me," Brittingham said. "They did it over the phone. Then the money was transferred from my credit card to their bank account."

Brittingham said the only information the thief needed was her mother's maiden name, which people who know her knew as well.

"They did five different transactions in a month's time, so I didn't know that this was going on," Brittingham said.

She made the mistake of not checking her statement in October. Instead, she wrote her usual check to the credit card company without verifying all the transactions registered to her account. She never noticed the checks were missing from her mailbox.

"I never look at those checks, I just tear them up and throw them away," Brittingham said. "They didn't come with the bill so I would've never known that I didn't get them."

Brittingham was able to prove she hadn't used the checks and the charges were removed from her account. And she learned her lesson about protecting personal information.

Chris Kieffer is the vice president for electronic banking for First Bank in St. Louis. He said people tend to be more reactive than proactive when it comes to protecting themselves from credit card fraud and identity theft.

"The biggest things I tell people to be aware of is stay in touch with your bank account, review credit card and bank statements and make sure there's nothing on them you don't recognize, and annually pull a credit report on yourself," Kieffer said. "These are proactive steps any consumer can take."

For credit card offers that are sent through the mail, Kieffer suggests a shredder. Most of those offers will have a lot of your personal information on them already.

"Protect that information about yourself," Kieffer said. "It's just as easy for somebody to tape it together as it is for you to tear it apart once or twice."

Kieffer said online banking is safe on bank sites, but to be cautious of fake e-mail correspondence from banks, called phishing. These e-mails claim to be your bank trying to secure personal information about you. They will link you to a site that looks similar to your banks site. Kieffer said banks will never send e-mails like that to your private account.

"Banks are never going to validate through that mechanism," he said. "If something doesn't look right, don't use it. If you have questions ask a branch employee."

For online shoppers, Kieffer advises getting to know the merchant.

"Make sure it's somebody reputable," he said. "Fraud happens after the fact when we don't know where we're shopping or who we're using as a vendor."

And Brittingham has some advice, too. After her experience she had the limit on her credit card lowered to only $300.

"Never have a limit that's more than you're willing to lose," she said. "Whatever you might spend if you were somewhere and needed to buy something."

And she's learned another lesson.

"I will read every statement that I get," she said. "It's just been a complete nightmare."