By Kim Ode, Star Tribune
August 15, 2007
One in three victims of identity theft last year was a college student.
Q What's 10 feet tall, bullet proof, has great earning potential and spills its guts on the Internet?
A The typical college student.
While their actual paychecks remain to be seen, many students likely have no problem being pegged as both open and invulnerable. Unfortunately, that otherwise healthy attitude could wreak havoc with their finances, according to Todd Davis, a specialist in identity-theft risk management and founder of LifeLock, the nation's first identity-theft prevention service.
In Minnesota, the highest percentage of identity-theft complaints, 30 percent, was recorded by people in the 18 to 29 age group, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Identity theft has risen steadily over the past seven years in the United States, and college students represented one in three victims last year, Davis said. This comes as no surprise, given how often they're asked for their Social Security number, "the key to the kingdom" when it comes to infiltrating a person's privacy.
"College students are really out there because they have to give it to the financial office, the health service, if they apply for employment," he said.
There's no way around that, but students can take steps to keep the number, or other aspects of their identity, from being stolen.
The danger: Credit card companies inundate students with offers of preapproved cards. Thieves then target a campus' communal mailboxes, grab up a bunch and say, "Yes, I'd like to take advantage of this offer, but I have a new address." The ready-to-use card then gets sent to the thief's home and the victim won't know a card has been issued in their name until a collection agency comes after them.
The fix: Call 1-888-5OPTOUT (1-888-567-8688). This will remove your name from all marketing lists that the credit agencies supply to direct marketers, which should put a significant dent in mailings. This won't send you back to the Dark Ages; Davis said you'll still be able to receive competitive credit card offers from your bank, with whom you already have a relationship.
The danger: Thieves who have your Social Security number can set up charge accounts in your name.
The fix: Place a fraud alert on your credit reports (see contact info below). When someone seeks to open a new account, the creditor will call to confirm that it's really you through a series of identifying questions. You need to renew the alert every 90 days -- or go with a service such as LifeLock, which will include this among its services for $10 a month, "and [students] can probably get their parents to pay for that," Davis said.
The danger: You've unwittingly given away too much personal information on MySpace, Facebook or a chat room. Say someone is asking if you have a dog. What's its name? What color is it? "They're fishing for password information," Davis said. "If they know you have a chocolate-brown poodle named Rocky, they can put their technology to work and hack into where you bank with a much higher probability of guessing your password." Even more devious, they can claim to have forgotten the password and use this info to change your verifying questions, such as "breed of dog."
The fix: Keep your radar alert for innocent-yet-determined probing from strangers and think twice about sharing everything. "I don't want us to not use technology, but just take a couple of reasonable precautions," Davis said. "Then you can go off and live your life and have fun at college."
Kim Ode • 612-673-7185 • kimode@startribune.com