Archive for November, 2011

Welcome to the new and improved Cedarlane Financial Consulting  web site!

I hope you find the updated version refreshing and easy to navigate. Life is a journey and depending on the roads we take along the way  it can be a highway ride  ,smooth and comfortable  or  a backwoods  gravel nightmare ! Its my hope that  the information you find here helps you stay  on the highway to success  whatever your definition of that is .

Identity Theft   a question of when not if ??

Identity theft is one of the fastest growing  crimes in North America . According to a study by the US Federal Trade Commission more that 10 million  people were victimized in 2003.   By 2009  1 in 4 of us in Canada have been affected. Almost 25% of victims of new account theft or fraud did not discover the misuse of information for at least 6 months after it started.  Criminals these days are using increasingly creative methods to gain access to our financial records and resources. Several forms of theft can leave a person’s ID  stripped and useless to them, devastate their credit  , mortgage  ID theft or  even  commit crimes in their name .  Victims of such a crime are often left with an emotional toll as well as a financial cost.  It only takes the criminal’s minutes to retrieve the information they need in some cases while it could take the victim  years to regain their identity or credit score. Most of the focus has been on the theft of credit cards or bank cards  but the are other types of ID theft from drivers license, medical information, social security number, character or criminal identity. How do they do it?  Ingenious thieves have many methods and are coming up with new ones every day  but here is a short list of a few of the common ones.

Dumpster diving  -   they simply sort thru a persons trash or recycling , most often retail businesses are prime targets  , pre approved credit offers, prescriptions, old checks, receipts, employee records 

The solution   Shred !

Mail theft -  its old fashioned  but it works , do not leave mail in your box for any length of time

Phishing and Pharming  – a more high tech version of the above , consumers are duped into revealing personal information such as passwords , pin numbers,  SIN or account numbers by a bogus email or web site

keep this information safe !  try not to keep it all in one place

Hackers or domain spoofers can steal information on the internet

remember data transferred across the internet can be intercepted  and the thieves often don’t need much information to complete their job

Skimming – credit cards run through a skimmer to read the information  and create clone cards to use

Sophisticated ones  use fake fronts over  ATM or bank  machines   , machines which just swipe cards are the most vunerable to this

Experts estimate the typical identity theft victim will spend on average $ 1500  and spend countless hours to replace stolen ID cards and the many other problems caused by this growing epidemic. Whether you are a victim today or in the future  you may  need: access to legal counsel,  investigators ,ongoing credit monitoring  and professional restoration.  There is no blue print for dealing with these crimes  but there are several companies  that specialize in protection ,prevention and remediation .

For more information on ID theft  and How to prevent it  contact

Sandra Valks    1 888 323 7272      svalks.ppl@gmail .com

check out this link   it has a great educational video

https://www.prepaidlegal.com/MS/Multisite?site=hub&assoc=sandravalks