About this Identity Theft Scout website: In my careers I have been a Banker, Accountant, Certified Financial Planner and Freelancer.
I know from my 30 years as a Banker and 10 years as a Certified Financial Planner that having a plan and being prepared is crucial to protecting your finances and assets.
When I was a bank accountant I went through the traumatic experience of being at a bank branch that was held up by an armed robber after cash.
My last position in the banking industry was as a Manager in a compliance/audit role when electronic fraud was becoming a serious operational threat.
Today, banks are constantly proactively trying to anticipate what the unscrupulous might do. However, it is important that you take preventative steps to protect your assets by protecting your identity.
From Banker to Certified Financial Planner
I worked in the banking industry for about thirty years and I was there when the last big financial crisis occurred in the late eighties and early nineties.
I was a Manager in an auditing/compliance role and saw the source of the policy mistakes first hand. It is disappointing that history has repeated itself.
After I had recovered from losing my career I realized that I would have to retrain myself and went back to school to study financial planning for two years.
It took another three years of continuing education and examination before I became a Certified Financial Planner. One of the key lessons that I learnt was that every financial plan for every client should have emergency money set aside.
Today, with the common occurrence of identity theft I believe that this should have this clause added: and protect your assets by protecting your identity.
John Cosstick at 50
an Accountant & Financial Planner
(Before retirement)
Lifestyle Planning is About Understanding Risk Management
Whatever stage of life you are at whether as a single, married, parent, or retiree it is important that you understand how to manage risk. Often this is not learned until later in life.
I know because I have made mistakes and not identified the risks at some stages of my life and had to work hard to recover my position.
In broad terms, risk management can be summarized as follows:
- Accept risk: this means you are prepared to accept the consequences if something goes wrong
- Avoid risk: this means that you will alter plans to avoid something adverse happening
- Mitigate risk: this means that you will take steps to lessen the impact if something does go wrong
- Transfer risk: this means you will outsource risk to another party if something does go wrong
Taking reasonable precautions to prevent identity theft is important because the consequences can be severe. You may find that your bank may well have added another layer of security to protect your bank account that you are not aware of.
When my wife and I were reviewing our bank accounts we discovered that they had added a mobile telephone SMS code facility to the Pay Anyone Facility that existed on our bank accounts.
This meant that when we wanted to transfer money outside the bank that wasn’t payment of an account we had to input a code sent by SMS to our mobile telephone. This is a clever and simple service to prevent fraud. We implemented the service. Have you checked with your bank?
Watch out for Fraud on the Internet – There is More Than Identity Theft!
It is hard to believe that people would prey on the gullibility of people seeking to start work again or supplement their family income.
However, it is true and the scams are not easily detected. I have been caught myself and lost about $5,000. You would think that with all my experience that I would be able to pick up a scam.
It was the seemingly genuine testimonials supporting a scam that that got me hooked. However, I was not alone. Not that it makes me feel any better.
Internet fraud is now a major issue for consumers around the world. Most countries’ Fair Trade Commissions or equivalent Commissions have taken action to tighten the guidelines on testimonials.
The Federal Trade Commission of the United States has published guides on endorsements and testimonials which can be found at http://www.ftc.gov/.
Regards,
