Pertinent Perils

Each One Adds Up

I had advised that small business owners should write to each of the publications to which they subscribe advising that your name, address and other contact information should not be shared with third parties. The idea is to reduce the amount of time that telemarketers can waste. This will improve your productivity in normal business operations. It will also help you to focus on critical communications in the event you are disrupted by a disaster. Spam, telemarketing and unwanted solicitations become more than a nuisance when you are operating from a remote location and trying to deal with a serious disruption to your business. I recently had the experience of receiving persistent calls from a telemarketer who played coy in response to my question as to how he obtained my personal information.

Business that seek contracts with the U.S. federal government are required to register with Dun & Bradstreet, which I did for my own small business when I was responding to a Request for Proposals of the U.S. Agency for International Development. As my registration was a matter of some urgency in order to ensure that I would meet USAID’s deadline, I gave my cell phone number to Dun & Bradstreet solely for the purpose of processing  my registration.  Unbeknownst to me, Dun & Bradstreet re-sold this information to third parties. I began to receive telephone calls on my cell phone from Fortune 500 companies seeking to sell products and services that are totally inappropriate for my small business. Ordinarily I would switch off my cell phone in business meetings out of courtesy to the others present. But as I would explain to other participants at the beginning of each meeting, my circumstances were not ordinary. As my mother was recovering from a traumatic brain injury, I needed to ensure that I could be reached at all times. Since that was the only use of my cell phone, you can imagine how my heart would race and my palms would sweat whenever that phone would ring. And you can further imagine my fury that the calls were unwanted solicitations. When I traced the source of the calls, I notified Dun & Bradstreet in writing that my information is not to be sold to third parties and I wish to be placed on their internal “Do Not Call” list. You should do the same. I think it is an appalling practice that D & B would re-sell this information without the consent of the small business owner, facilitating the abuse and waste of our time. It is particularly offensive to me because we are a captive audience, required to register with D&B if we want to bid on government contracts. Stop the abuse; notify them to keep your information private.

An attorney friend of mine recently had a horrible experience following the theft of his wallet. He sent me the following advice with the request that I post it for you. To minimize your potential losses from credit theft, he recommends the following:

“1. Do not sign the back of your credit cards. Instead, put “photo identification required.”

2. When you are writing checks to pay on your credit card accounts, do not put the complete account number on the “memo” line. Write only the last four numbers. The credit card company knows the rest of the number, and anyone who might be handling your check as it passes through all the check processing channels should not have access to it.

3. Put your work phone number on your checks instead of your home number. If you have a post office box use that instead of your home address. If you do not have a post office box, use your work address.  Never have your social security number printed on your checks. You can add it if it is necessary. But if you have It printed, anyone can access it.

4. Place the contents of your wallet on a photocopy machine. Do both sides of each license, credit card, each piece of identification in your wallet. You will know what you had in your wallet and all of the account numbers and phone numbers to call and cancel. Keep the photocopy in a safe place. I also carry a photocopy of my passport when I travel either here or abroad. We’ve all heard horror stories about fraud that’s committed on us in stealing a name, address, social security number, credit cards. Unfortunately, I, an attorney, have firsthand knowledge because my wallet was stolen last month. Within a week, the thieve(s) ordered an expensive monthly cell phone package, applied for a Visa credit card, had a credit line approved to buy a Gateway computer, received a PIN number from the Department of Motor Vehicles to change my driving record information online, and more.

5. We have been told we should cancel our credit cards immediately. But the key is having the toll free numbers and your card numbers handy so you know whom to call. Keep those where you can find them.

6. File a police report immediately in the jurisdiction where your credit cards, etc., were stolen. This proves to credit providers you were diligent, and this is a first step toward an investigation (if there ever is one). But here’s what is perhaps most important of all (I never even thought to do this):

7. Call the three national credit reporting organizations Immediately to place a fraud alert on your name and also call the social security fraud line number. I had never heard of doing that until advised by a bank that called to tell me an application for credit was made over the Internet in my name. The alert means any company that checks your credit knows your information was stolen, and they have to contact you by phone to authorize new credit. By the time I had been advised to do this, almost two weeks after the theft, all the damage had been done. There are records of all the credit checks initiated by the thieves’ purchases, none of which I knew about before placing the alert. Since then, no additional damage has been done, and the thieves threw my wallet away this weekend (someone turned it in). It seems to have stopped them dead in their tracks. The following are the numbers you always need to contact when your wallet, credit cards or other personal identifying information been stolen:

• Equifax: 800-525-6285
• Experian (formerly TRW): 888-397-3742
• Trans Union : 800-680-7289
• Social Security Administration (fraud line):800-269-0271″