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Analog People In A Digital World

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If you’ve opened up the newspaper lately, turned on the radio, or spoke with a colleague, chances are you will have heard of the new rampant levels of identify theft that is taking place and growing to new heights each year. You or someone you know may have already been a victim of this serious crime.

Why should you worry about identify theft? For one thing, a seriously damaged credit report can ruin your chances of getting a new job, a bank loan, insurance, and even rental housing. In the worst case scenario you could even be arrested if someone utilized your identity to commit a crime.

Here are some tips to help reduce the chances of having your identity compromised:

1. When making a credit card purchase, blank out the 12 numbers of your credit card number on the printed receipt (assuming that all 16 are printed as some places still do). This holds especially true at restaurants. Try not leaving the signed receipt left on the table with all numbers visible. You are permitted by law to mark out 12 of them so that passerby’s can’t get a glance and memorize your credit card number.

2. Avoid relaying your social security number to anyone unless it’s absolutely required. Use common sense in most cases, for example to open a bank account you will probably need to give out your social security number, but if a store clerk simply wants to use your social security number to use as an ID, then you should reserve from doing so in most cases.

3. Have access to a personal shredder. For any documents you plan on throwing away it helps to shred anything that contains personally identifiable information including social security, credit card numbers, phone numbers, and birth date.

4. In the worst case scenario, i.e. if your identify has been stolen, here are some steps to assuage the situation: Contact your credit card companies and have them close your accounts as well as issue new cards for you. Put a fraud alert via one the three major credit bureaus. One will notify the other two automatically. File a police report to use as evidence when creditors ask for it. File a notice or complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, which manages a database of identity theft related cases which are used by law enforcement personnel for their investigations.

Try to use your intuition in most cases. The most reported incidents of identity theft generally are not necessarily the most technologically sophisticated.

Analog People In A Digital World
So you want to save a few hundred dollars but don't want to give up your morning latte? While it is easy to preach how to cut your daily habits to save a buck, it is difficult to practice the same for most folks. However, there are other ways to cut your expenses without sacrificing your daily habits.

In today's technology driven society, we spend a lot of money buying electronics gadgets and accompanying services to make our life easy. Sellers know that we have disposable incomes and they push many services that we absolutely don't need.

When you sign up for a cell phone service, they will try to push the loss-damage warranty for $5 a month. When did you last use that warranty to claim a new phone? In most cases you don't need the service. In the worst case, if you loose or damage the phone, buy a cheap phone from eBay to carry you over till your contract expires.

If you are an occasional mobile phone user, get a pre-pay phone. Using a pre pay phone card that charges 10 cents per minute for talk time, you will be able save a few hundred dollars every year.

If you are in the market for a computer, buy the one on sale in your local electronics store. Every week, all national retailers have laptop and desktop computers on sale. Avoid mail-in rebates. Go for instant rebates.

Today's cheap computers provide most functionality for majority of users. Don't buy a high-end computer because the sales person says that the one on sale has slow Internet speed or other such nonsense.

Just buy the computer and don't buy any software or warranty even if the sales person insists that you absolutely need that anti-virus and word processing software for an additional $300. Check with your broadband provider or the company you work for if they provide anti-virus software for free to install in you personal computer.

Use the Google search engine to find open source anti-virus and word processing software. The key word here is open source. You will find a few excellent open source word processing and anti-virus software. For example, Open Office for word processing and spreadsheet and clamWin for anti-virus.

Don't buy any computer accessories like memory or hard drive from your local retailers. They charge way too much compared to online stores like newegg, ecost, etc. Sign up with newegg and ecost to get their newsletters full of items on sale every week.

Before you decide to buy a gadget, visit price comparison sites like pricegrabber, bizrate, pricescan, shopzilla, mysimon, etc. Also regularly check out bargain hunting sites like techbargains, dealtime, etc. Don't forget to search for the item you are looking for in amazon, the grand daddy of all online retail stores.

Drop all those premium movie channels that your cable company has sold you as savings if you purchase them in a bundle. You only need one premium channel. Why subscribe to three and pay an additional $5 to $8 every month?

If you are renting your broadband cable modem for $10 or more every month, buy a new modem for $50 to $75. These modems last for long time and you will recover your money within six months after you drop the modem rental. You will be on you way to savings of at least $10 a month.

If you are paying more than $20 a month for your land phone line, drop it immediately. Get a cheap VoIP phone from lingo for $10 a month. If you are a heavy land phone line user, you will still save by switching to a VoIP phone.

If you frequently drive in unknown places, get a car navigation system. But don't buy a factory installed in-car navigation system. A car navigation system gives driving directions and suggests alternate routes to take to avoid traffic congestions due to accidents, road constructions, etc.

Factory installed systems are over priced. The price of a portable GPS navigation system has dropped below $200. You can also move your portable system to another vehicle that does not have a navigation system.

We will be spending a lot of money in the years ahead on more gadgets to improve our productivity, make life easy, and for the sheer joy of living. Knowing how to squeeze every penny from those expenses will definitely improve your personal finances.
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Both Jack Lee & Deepak Dutta are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Jack Lee has sinced written about articles on various topics from Air Purifier Cleaners, Finances and Skin Care. Don't take security for granted in any form. Secure your business and home with home security camerasas well as safety procedures you should be a. Jack Lee's top article generates over 22200 views. Bookmark Jack Lee to your Favourites.

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