Information is money because to obtain money, you need numbers: PINs, credit card numbers, and bank account numbers. If someone steals 20 dollars from you, then nothing worse can happen. If someone discovers your bank account number, then much worse things can happen, and you’ll have to change your information sooner or later.
Identity theft isn’t good, and as technology improves, the most careful people can still leak credit card numbers. Every day, scammers steal information from nearly 50,000 Americans. Not everyone is so gullible as to help a Nigerian prince or clear up a few things about a recent purchase to Bob from Ohio, but what can be an annoyance is having to destroy every sensitive document that comes your way.
Who knows how much one can find out about you with your birthday or full name? Have you Googled yourself? What information about you is up for grabs? The last few digits of your credit card grace each of your receipts. If you write a list of your online accounts, there will be at least a dozen items regardless of how often you use social media, and how many of your passwords are actually different? Is the recyclable one any good in the first place? Does a recyclable username sometimes swap places with a recyclable password? Both usernames and passwords have to be easy to remember, so to learn about you is to learn what your passwords might be. The average American’s life is just too complicated for you not to be vulnerable. Controlling who sees what isn’t easy, and it might take a little more effort from you than you already exert, but ultimately, it might also save you a lot of money.
How Can I Protect Myself From Identity Theft?
You have a few options. You can start tearing up your receipts. You can go out of your way to buy a personal shredder instead of tearing paper into quadrants, but shredders are potentially messy. You can use markers or pens to cross out social security numbers, addresses, and last names. You can be dramatic and throw documents into a fire.
The main problem with these safeguards is that a good scare from an article like this might heighten your vigilance for just a few weeks before you tire of covering your tracks. Who cares about little old you buying groceries, anyway?Do scammers really think you have that much money to lose? You went out for dinner and drinks on a Tuesday night? How scandalous. Well, scammers are counting on you to think they don’t care. Your apathy is their business.
Then How Can I Exercise Greater Vigilance Against Identity Theft?
Thankfully, as identity theft becomes more common, so do the forms of identity protection. A great example is the ID Police: Identity Protection Roller, an effective and, more importantly, quick way to redact sensitive information from physical documents so that prying eyes can’t see them.
Certainly, this “roller” is a step up from pens and markers in a few key ways:
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- It’s wider than a marker.
- Only one stroke is necessary.
- It leaves a pattern instead of a solid color, obfuscating further the information on the document.
- Its ink sticks to a lot more surfaces than markers or pens do, including glossy or laminated surfaces.
- Its ink remains durable against either alcohol or other solutions, and no angle of light reveals the contents underneath.
- It’s child-safe because there’s nothing for children to inhale (or even snort if they’re feeling adventurous).
While this roller is as portable and as unobtrusive as a pen, it offers twice the concealment capabilities of a shredder, which is inevitably louder and messier. With 300 feet of ink, the ID Police: Identity Protection Roller can assist you in disposing hundreds of documents, from items as important as bank statements and credit cards to trifles like junk mail and postcards. The 59 ID Police reviews already suggest that it’s a 4.6-star product.
TL;DR. What Did They Say?
In short, the roller does everything it’s supposed to do, and that’s enough for customers, some of whom were skeptics before purchasing. One customer even suggests you throw your shredder out the window as soon as the roller arrives. This easy way to take care of sensitive information keeps junk mail from piling up and offers peace of mind in a way that tearing paper into quadrants doesn’t.
The technology and complexity of the 21st century make it hard to feel in-control of one’s life, but with a single trivial purchase of an ID Police Roller, you can keep your identity much safer. You can buy different value packs or start with only one. Keep yourself safe, and good luck.
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