If you receive my newsletter, you’ve already seen this article on identity theft during tax season, but I thought I would re-post it here.
Tax time is like Christmas for identity thieves. Our personal information sits out on desks (ours and our tax preparer’s), is mailed improperly, emailed incorrectly and stored unsafely. And to top it all off,
I just finished speaking to an amazing group of financial advisors at the Lincoln Financial Group Planning Forum. This is a group of people who take the security of their business information, the privacy of their clients and their own personal data safety very seriously. It was an identity theft prevention speech, but specifically geared to the exceptional amount of identity handled by financial planners. These are people who have to proactively protect physical client files, filing cabinets, computers access, wired and wireless networks, trash, mail, hiring policies (to avoid bringing an identity thief into the company), mobile devices, and many other forms of information vulnerability as part of their everyday job. That is a lot of responsibility, and this group handles it beautifully. But I gave them some advice that turned out to be suspect…
“Might I have another lump of coal for the fire, Mr. Scrooge?”
-Bob Cratchit (Dickens’ A Christmas Carol)
What in the world do we have to learn from Ebenezer Scrooge about protecting our identities during the busy holiday season?
Plenty!
I just checked out of my hotel room in NYC after delivering an identity theft speech to the most wonderful New Yorkers at the Federal Reserve Bank of NY, and it reminded me of a question I hear constantly as I travel:
Can my identity be stolen off of the room key cards that hotels use?
I’ve just visited the fountain of youth. Have you ever had one of those experiences where you meet a person or a group of people that renews your faith in all that’s good in the world? I delivered a speech on identity theft prevention to AARP South Carolina (a chapter of the American Association of Retired Persons – an amazing organization that you should be part of if you are over 50) yesterday morning, and met a group that actually makes me look forward to growing up. Doris, Barb, Leigh Ann, Patrick, Lynda, Bill, Ridge, Charlie, Emily (I could name 50 more)… these are the people that greeted me like I was part of their family and treated me like someone special. They are some of the youngest spirits I’ve ever met. And I learned a great deal from them…
Sometimes I feel like I have no privacy. I didn’t think this had anything to do with identity theft when I first realized it, but it does. On the weekends, my email lures me into my home office to check for new messages. I don’t actually need to pick them up, but I’m driven to, like an addiction to Amaretto Milano cookies – I can’t help myself. I’m not exactly sure what I think I’m going to find in my inbox (maybe the good news of
Do I need to add my cell phone number to a Do Not Call list in order to keep telemarketers from contacting me on my mobile phone?
No. But you should add it to the list anyway. Right now, cell phone numbers are not being released to telemarketers, but they might be in the future. For details, visit the Federal Trade Commission’s article entitled The Truth About Cell Phones and the Do Not Call Registry.
That said, today is a good time to re-submit (or submit for the first time) your home phone number, mobile number and fax number to the National Do Not Call Registry. Here’s why:
Your financial advisor has your portfolio performing well. You consider your risk to be minimal because your assets are well balanced. But have they really protected the portfolio from all types of risk, including identity theft? How would you feel if you took a 100% investment loss overnight because a thief obtained your personal information?
Welcome!
Questions? I love questions. Some questions have answers, which is fine; we should share those answers. But the questions that impress me most are those that start conversations. The people that I like and respect the most ask a lot of questions – of me (is my ego showing?); of life; of themselves. My wife is one of those people. Kids are those people. Joe, a checker at my local market (who has Down’s Syndrome and asks me every time I visit, “What’s up with your bad self, Elvis?”), is one of those people. I want to be one of those people. Care to join me?
When not asking questions, John Sileo is the award-winning author of Stolen Lives: Identity Theft Prevention Made Simple and is considered to be America’s top professional identity theft speaker. He often asks himself who exactly gets to decide who’s at “the top”. He’s pretty sure it’s his marketing guy. Curious? Visit www.ThinkLikeASpy.com.
Get monthly strategies and tips for protecting yourself and your business delivered right to your Inbox. Signup now and you'll immediately receive John's 7 Survival Strategies for Starving Data Spies!
Call us today at 303.777.3221 or 1.800.258.8076
The Sileo Group, Inc. | 381 S. Broadway | Denver, CO 80209 USA
© 2026 The Sileo Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Legal Information. Sitemap.
