Danger: What is in your wallet?

What is in your wallet or purse can make a big difference if it is stolen. Besides the credit cards and whatever cash or valuables you might be carrying, you also need to be concerned about your identity being stolen, which is a far more serious problem.

Thieves can use your identity to set up phony bank accounts, take out loans, file bogus tax returns and otherwise invade your finances, and all an identity thief needs to be able to do these things is your name, Social Security number, and birth date.

Think about it: your driver’s license has 2 of the 3 keys to your identity. And if you also carry your Social Security card or Medicare Card, bingo!  An identity thief then has all the information he needs.

You can always cancel stolen credit cards or close a compromised bank and charge accounts, but when someone steals your identity and opens accounts you don’t know about, you can’t take any mitigating action.

So if you carry your Social Security card along with your driver’s license, you may wish to rethink that habit for identity safety purposes.