As Tax Day is approaching the Better Business Bureau joined NTV to talk about safely shredding documents to protect yourself from identity theft.
“I.D. theft is more common than you think. Scams are designed to either steal your money or identity OR both.” said Schmidt.
In December, NTV reported about a historic data breach that impacted hundreds of thousands of Nebraskans involving Change Healthcare. A data breach that size has people’s social security numbers, date of births, and more. All that information is key in opening accounts that scammers may want to open. Jessie Schmidt of the Better Business Bureau advised checking your credit score periodically to see if anyone has opened an account without your knowledge.
“In the US you can check your credit report with each of the credit bureaus once per year for free. The three credit reporting agencies are Experian, Transunion, and Equifax.” said Schmidt.
“Ways, you can protect yourself is to be careful with your identification. Treat that like how valuable it really is. Shred your documents that you get. If you get any bank statements sent to you, you should shred those, you can shred old bills, old insurance information. You don’t want to shred your social security cards, but anything that has any identifiable social security information.” stated Schmidt.
Most Communities offer free shred events. Town and Country Bank in Ravenna will be hosting a free shred event April 12th from 10 am to noon.
Tune in Next week as we break down the 2025 Identity Theft Scam Study.