In September, I attended the annual conference of the Financial Planning Association in San Diego.  It was 3 ½ days filled with a variety of financial planning educational sessions.  Each year, the FPA® invites interesting keynote speakers to kickoff and close the conference.  The speakers are from outside of the financial planning profession, but tie their discussion to a financial planning concept.

This year’s opening keynote presentation was a session on financial fraud, delivered by a very well-known convicted fraudster.  Frank Abagnale led a life of crime in his younger days.  His crimes consisted of forgery, identity theft and embezzlement.  You may recognize his name from his best-selling book, but more likely from a Steven Spielberg movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks entitled “Catch Me if You Can.”  Mr. Abagnale was in San Diego to tell us how, before his 19^th birthday, he successfully conned millions of dollars posing as a Pan Am pilot, a doctor and a lawyer.

After finally getting caught and serving time in both a foreign and a U.S. prison, Mr. Abagnale went to work for the FBI as a specialist in fraud prevention.  That was 36 years ago and he is still there today.  In his keynote address, he suggested that in today’s world, fraud is easier for criminals than ever before.  His focus is on the crime of identity theft, which according to the Federal Trade Commission has affected 15 million American victims.  After an entertaining story of his life of crime, and sharing his feelings of disgrace for those crimes, he gave us his top tips for preventing identity theft.  On his website, www.abagnale.com, he says that “because punishment for fraud and recovery of stolen funds are so rare, prevention is the only viable course of action.”

Number one on his list of tips on how to prevent someone from stealing your identity was to use a credit monitoring service.  Specifically, he recommends choosing a service that monitors all three credit agencies and one that will notify you in real time when some activity occurs.

Mr. Abagnale’s second suggestion is to use a shredder for any and all documents that contain any personal information.  He suggested using a “micro-cut” shredder, one that turns documents into confetti.

His next tip led directly to a change of behavior for my wife and me.  Because we don’t like credit card bills or balances, we’ve been in the habit of using our debit card to pay for purchases.  Mr. Abagnale strongly suggests that you do not use a debit card when you can use a credit card.  Why?  When you use a debit card, you are putting your money at risk.  When you use a credit card, you are putting the bank’s money at risk.  Credit cards have a maximum liability of $50 for unauthorized charges.  Debit cards can go to $500 or more.  Immediately after his presentation, we put this one into practice.

Finally, he said to make sure that your computer is protected with:  1) a firewall to block hackers from accessing your computer; 2) antivirus software to keep bugs and viruses out of your system; and 3) spyware protection to keep malicious software from hiding on your machine and sending your personal information out to the internet.  He also suggests that you should always careful about the ads you click and what programs and other items you decide to download.

These are the most important steps you can take to protect yourself from identity theft, but it is by no means inclusive of all the things you can do.  For move identity-protecting ideas, you can visit his website. 

A victim of identity theft spends more than $1000 and 175 hours to get their credit report fixed.  Taking the steps that he suggests won’t guarantee that you won’t be a victim, but they will greatly reduce your odds of being one.