Protect Yourself from Identity Theft

For Mark Roberts’ Use: Identity theft is a growing problem for consumers. As soon as law enforcement officials begin to figure out criminal methods, thieves move on to newer, more sophisticated tactics. This is particularly true of cyber crime, because hackers continually stay one step ahead of law enforcement and the general public.

Cyber criminals particularly enjoy targeting older Americans for two reasons:

1) The younger generation, having grown up around computers, tends to be much more wary of common internet scams
2) Older Americans tend to have accumulated more financial resources and longer, more stable credit histories. These are the identities that are worth stealing.

To protect yourself from identity theft online, take the following measures.

Watch out for suspicious emails. If you don’t recognize the source of the email, or even if an email from a friend contains a strange attachment, don’t open it! Viruses are often sent by email, and they can infect your compute and access any sensitive information stored inside.

Protect all of your devices with passwords. Well-meaning visitors, including grandchildren, may accidentally cause your computer to be infected with a virus. Passwords also protect your devices in case of theft. If you lose your laptop, tablet, or smart phone in a crowded airport or other public location, a password will keep criminals out of your personal data.

Lock your home wifi connection. Leaving the connection open means anyone near your home can access your network – and any information you send. This can open you up to serious problems if you shop online using credit cards.

Be careful with public wifi connections. Using your credit card on a public wifi connection means that anyone else on that network could intercept your card data. For that matter, logging into Paypal or your bank account could spell disaster. Don’t engage in personal financial activities on a public network.

Update your anti-virus software. Keep your anti-virus software up to date, and run scans regularly to detect potential problems in your computer. Set a schedule to run scans once per week, or at least once per month.

About the Author: Mark Roberts

In addition to managing clients’ money and giving investment and diversification advice, Mark offers something that “the other guys” don’t - a unique approach to Retirement Tax Strategies and distribution. Time and time again, Mark meets with new clients who tell him they have a great relationship with their financial advisor but have never been offered information on this kind of approach to securing their financial futures. Mark has taken this feedback to heart and works tirelessly to ensure that his strategies focus on taxes and distribution. Mark started selling insurance for a major insurance company right out of high school to help put himself through college. After graduating with a degree in finance, he dove into estate planning on the financial side to set himself apart from other financial advisors. However, as changes were made to estate tax laws over time, Mark shifted his focus to income tax strategies. Mark’s philosophy is “the blue prints are more important than the wall paper or carpet.” The wall paper and carpet represent products like investments and insurance policies, whereas the blue prints represent the strategies. Once strategies that truly fit the client’s needs are put in place, our focus can shift to providing you with the right products. According to Mark, “It doesn’t matter what carpet we use if the walls are not in the right place.” Our approach to money management is designed to generate the largest alpha (quality) with the lowest standard deviation and beta (risk). By doing this, we help provide clients with the highest return on the lowest risk. Generating income for our retirees is also very important. Because withdrawing money from your portfolio hurts the account rather than helping it, our goal is to design income strategies to harm the portfolio the least making the money last longer.

Protect Yourself from Identity Theft

Protect Yourself from Identity Theft

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About the Author: Mark Roberts