A friend of mine sent this to me over the email the other day.

There was no reference to give credit to the writer, I'm guessing he doesn't really care.

This is some solid information on taking precautions and what to do if your wallet or purse ever gets stolen

ATTORNEY'S ADVICE - NO CHARGE

Read this and make a copy for your files in case you need to refer to it someday.  Maybe we should all take some of his advice!  A corporate Attorney sent the following to the employees in his company.

     1. Do not sign the back of your credit cards. Instead, put "PHOTO ID REQUIRED."

     2. When you are writing checks to pay on your credit card Accounts, DO NOT put the complete account number on the "For" line.  Instead, just put 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 won't have access to it.

     3. Put your work phone # on your checks instead of your home Phone.  If you have a PO Box use that instead of your home address.  If you do not have a PO Box, use your work address.  Never have your SS# printed on your checks.  (DUH!)  You can add it if it is necessary.  But if you have it printed, anyone can get it.

     4. Place the contents of your wallet on a photocopy machine.  Copy both sides of each license, credit card, etc.  Y ou will know what you had in your wallet and all of the account numbers and phone numbers to call to 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 DMV to change my driving record information online, and more.  But here's some critical information to limit the damage in case this happens to you or someone you know:

     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 3 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 was 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.

    Now, here are the numbers you always need to contact about your wallet, etc., that has been stolen:

      1.) Equifax: 800-525-6285

      2.) Experian (formerly TRW): 888-397-3742

      3.) TransUnion : 800-680-7289

      4.) Social Security Administration (fraud line): 800-269-0271

We pass along jokes on the Internet; we pass along just about everything.

If you are willing to pass this information along, it could really help someone.

Hopefully neither you or I will ever be a victim but if we are this could drastically reduce the magnitude of what happens.

mike

I've opted into to a large number of lists over the past several years and there is one thing that seems to be a real problem that bugs me and new marketers seem to think it's just the norm.

The problem is this, how many times have you opted in to someone's list because they said they wanted to give you a quality report that was going to give you some kind of information that you need to know?

Only to find out that the report was just another sales letter for the real product.

What ever happened to giving what you promised even if it's for free.

What so many marketers don't seem to realize is that if they give big value for free then people are going to put more weight into their paid products.

But hey if it produces fast sales then who cares right?

Well let me ask you, how many of the info products that you've purchased in the last number of years have actually given you what you needed to change your life.

mike

I'm going to share with you a simple but powerful way to get massive backlinks to your website and your published articles by taking 5 minutes of your time. 

Most of the good article directories like EzineArticles, GoArticles and others have and RSS feed for authors that anyone can get their hands on for free so that people can use the feeds to add content to their sites and stay updated on the authors articles. 

All you have to do is publish your feed to as many of the feed directories that you can find and boom, you'll have hundreds of backlinks pointing to your articles because people will be posting your articles on their sites which will also give you hundreds of backlinks to your websites as long as your putting a link to your site in the author bio area.

Read that again if you don't get how powerful that is.

Have a good one,

mike