Arm Yourself Against ID Theft With A Fellowes Shredder! #IDSafetySeason @FellowesInc #Ad

*I participated in a campaign on behalf of Fellowes Inc. I received a promotional item to facilitate this review and as a thank you item for participating.  All opinions are my own.       Most of you who are regular readers of this blog know that I was recently the victim of identity theft.  Fortunately, I found out about it because many people continue to be victimized for years without ever knowing that it was even taking place.  Having the opportunity to review a state-of-the-art P-12C Fellowes paper shredder couldn't have come at a more opportune time for me with this unfortunate recent turn of events...     We receive a lot of mail and junk mail here at our home and I always spend hours ripping it all up meticulously so that predators will not be able to access our personal information.  These criminals have been known to sift through people's garbage just to read through discarded documents and mail in order to steal their identities.  Due to this recent experience of … [Read more...]

What Should You Do If You Are The Victim Of Identity Theft?

    The afternoon of New Year's Eve, I received a message from a bill collector on my cell phone.  I immediately called them back because I have good credit and I take my financial obligations seriously.  They went on to tell me that a cable television account that I opened in California was in collections because I had not paid the bill.  Now, there was only one problem, I've never been to California so I knew that my identity had been compromised.     After a long discussion with this collector, I found out that a woman used my maiden name and my social security number to open a cable account at least three times since 2010 in the state of California and eventually defaulted on the account.  This was shocking because I've never shared my personal information with anyone without being cautious and I couldn't believe that this had been going on for so long without my knowledge.  I really felt violated that someone had stolen my identity this way.     Since this has never happened to … [Read more...]