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Strategic Relationships

(Network Services Member)

On being a Goodfunds client

Get the most out of your financial advisor relationship

• Think about life, financial goals, and dreams. Share those with advisor.
• Come to meetings with questions and concerns and take notes at meetings.
• Call advisor back, respond to mail.
• Respect advisor’s time but get needs met.
• Express appreciation (or dissatisfaction) with how services are received.

Things that might not support a successful arrangement

• Be overly trusting or overly suspicious.
• Be vague and indecisive.
• Never ask questions or initiate conversation about important topics.
• Regularly misplace financial records and correspondence.
• Not saying what’s really on your mind.

Avoiding investment scams

A 2006 study sponsored by the NASD Investor Education Foundation (now called FINRA) found that the highly educated (college degree or more) elderly are more likely to become victims of investment scams. How can that be? It is explained that they tend to feel savvy, sophisticated, and studious; and therefore believe they are immune to such scams.

Significant and valuable benefits may accrue to those citizens in particular whom have a trusted financial advisor and family members with which to discuss new investment opportunities. Of course, this is just sensible for anyone faced with such decisions.

Reduce your risk of falling victim to identity fraud

The statistic I hear is that most people spend around 500 hours and untold dollars getting a case of identity theft unraveled. A colleague's 16 year old daughter fell prey to such fraud because her school used social security numbers as the ID number on the student ID cards! Thieves simply used the daughter's name and social security number, but lied about other information to open accounts and maxing out credit lines, all in her name.

Five steps to protect your information:

1. Own a high-quality shredder and use it for every scrap of paper that has any kind of personal information on it. Don't settle for a cheap shredder that only shreds three pages at a time because you won't use it--instead spring for a good shredder that will take at least 10 pages at a time. Tip: In Seattle, you can put bagged shred in your recycle bin or unbagged in your yard waste. Other cities may have similar programs.
2. If you need to save original documents, keep them in a sturdy locking file cabinet or safety deposit box. Or scanned into password-protected files (PDF for example) on your password protected computer or on secured removable media.
3. Are you keeping track of more than a few usernames, logins, and passwords? We thought so. So we checked out some of the tools used to securely manage that kind of information. A couple that we think are secure (if used properly)  and well designed are www.LastPass.com and www.RoboForm.com. Using these kinds of tools can help you safely maintain high level passwords so you don't have to write them down or use other less secure methods to keep track of them all.
4. Many identity thefts originate from records obtained on stolen computers. Whether you use a laptop or a desktop computer, personal information on those hard drives should be encrypted. Security experts will tell you that operating system (Windows/Mac/etc.) password protection is not very secure. Consider Whole Disk Encryption from www.pgp.com to encrypt everything on your computer hard drive to HIPAA and DOD standards. Or consider Windows 7 and newer business-class computers that have encryption features available, but keep in mind that you have to activate it.
5. If possible, do not keep account numbers, Social Security, or other private information in your wallet. Be sure other items you carry, such as insurance cards, do not use your Social Security numbers. Refuse to provide your Social Security number to any non-governmental entity or purpose. That number should just be shared between you and the Federal government. And speaking of wallet, protect your RFID chips. What? If you have certain credit/debit cards such as American Express, building access cards, badges, and passports, you probably carry items containing little radio computer chips (RFIDs). Criminals now have portable readers that can record your information when you are out in public. However, you can easily shield these cards with a cheap device available from Identity Stronghold.  

Check credit bureau records regularly

Credit bureaus and financial institutions are achieving a heightened awareness of the identity theft problem and instituting all manner of services and programs to help consumers prevent this information from falling into the wrong hands. For example, Equifax offers Equifax Credit Watch which, for $99.95/year alerts you within 24 hours to key changes in your credit record -- as when a stranger tries to obtain credit in your name. Similar services are offered by Experian (Experian Credit Manager) and TransUnion (TransUnion Credit Monitoring). Critics say these services are costly and unnecessary because anyone can check their credit report at any time at no or little cost. Well, that's an active approach. The monitoring systems are a passive approach, i.e., you needn't do anything to find out if a thief is about to damage your credit. These new passive monitoring systems cost more -- and it just might be worth it.

Consider implementing "fraud alerts" or "freezes." If you believe your credit has been compromised, you can contact one of the major credit bureaus (above) and institute a fraud alert, meaning the bureau is supposed to keep an aggressive watch out for new, unauthorized accounts being opened in your name. An even better preventative step is to institute a freeze. You can't do it in all states, and sometimes you can't do it unless your credit has already been tampered with. But it's well worth looking into anyway. A freeze means a hold is put on any attempts to open accounts or new credit using one's name or social security number until the authenticity of the credit request is verified with you. A freeze can be inconvenient as it might cause a delay in opening a credit line or finalizing a mortgage. But consider the tradeoff carefully... a short delay and small cost to "unfreeze" one's credit to establish a new account or credit line vs. 500 hours and untold dollars to repair a case of identity theft.

Avoiding "phishing" schemes

Phishing, for the uninitiated, are emails (or paper mail too)  mocked up to look like legitimate requests from financial or other institutions to verify usernames, passwords and other information that could lead to identity theft. As a financial advisor, I've been trained to be on the alert for these schemes. One of the clients we serve received an email supposedly from their credit union. The message used the logo and same look as their credit union. It looked real. But upon hovering her mouse over the links in the email, she discovered that some of the links led to the credit union site while others didn't. She phoned (see tip below) her credit union and asked about the message. They said it was a fraudulent message and that the credit union would never ask customers to verify such information via email. They requested a copy of the message so their legal department could investigate and try to catch the perpetrator. 

Tip: Whenever you need to visit any web site that has your personal financial information including financial institutions and sites you have purchased items through, either manually type in their known URL (www. whatever .com) in your browser or use your own favorites or bookmarks list. And along those lines, when you phone your financial institution, use the number from their statement or your file rather than from a email that might not even be from them.

Be safe and secure

Please protect yourself. If not for you, do it for us. As one of your financial services relationships we are likely to be affected as well in the untangling of things. The above suggestions are all implemented economically and are convenient, especially when compared with the possible time/money cost of not doing them.

Call me or your financial institution if you wish to discuss these ideas further.