I just read through the recent article about one student’s experience with credit theft.

Although I have never had my money and credit squandered by a thief, I came very close myself. My purse was stolen out of my car, which was sitting in my brightly-lit garage, as I was coming in and out of the house loading up my vehicle in the process of moving to my new apartment. Fortunately, it was 11pm at night, and I realized the purse was gone within 30 minutes. I confirmed the theft by calling my cell phone service provider to see if any calls had been made from my cell phone since the time of my last call, and sure enough, the culprit had already gone through three of my programmed numbers. I am just thankful that the theft occurred late at night, preventing the thief from spending money everywhere.

Ever since that theft, I have taken extra precautions to prevent this from happening again. Here are some of my personal tips to keep this from happening to the general public:1) Ladies, zip up your purse when walking anywhere. My step-mother has had her wallet plucked out of her open purse TWICE.2) Do NOT keep old credit card receipts in your wallet or purse.3) Instead of signing the back of your credit card(s), put “See ID” in the signature area. IF the vendor checks for your signature, they’ll have to ask for your picture ID to verify your identity.4) IMPORTANT: Every time you sign a credit/debit card receipt, check to see if the printer has put your entire credit card number on the receipt. *THIS HAPPENS ALL THE TIME. If you sign that receipt with your full account number displayed, you might as well hand your credit card to the store’s employees, not to mention anyone who might pick throught the store’s trash. To avoid identity/credit theft, all you have to do is thoroughly scratch out part of the number on the merchant’s copy. Even if they look at you strangely, you can look right back — they shouldn’t allow your entire credit information to be visible on their paperwork.

Good luck to everyone in your efforts to avoid credit thievery.