Remove Labels

Identity fraud can occur if we fail to remove labels from all kinds of publications we receive either as a result of our subscriptions or unwanted mail order catalogues and others we receive in the mail. I personally receive many magazines that are related to my career; either because I subscribe to them or the professional associations I belong to send me their periodic magazines or newsletters.

At home, we receive many mail order catalogues with some special offers with pre-printed names and addresses. I guess they do that to make our jobs easier when responding to that special offer without any regard for potential identity theft. Curiously enough, some of those special offers happen to be credit card offers too. Pre-printing names and addresses only make the identity thieves’ jobs easier. These labels provide important information about your identity. I would even suggest that the nature and types of the magazines you receive provide clues on your identity in ways that you never thought about. For example, if you belong to an organization and you receive their monthly magazine or newsletter with pre printed labels and inserts, an identity thief can deduct the following conclusions:

1-Which organization you belong and locate its address, nature and type of organization, dues, required experience to join, genders allowed, its affiliations, web site, and contact info.

2-The organizations nature can in turn provide clues about you, your personality, habits, interests, and more. Personality, traits and habits play a big role in pretexting methods used in phishing and vishing scams.

3-Your credit worthiness can also be estimated based on your interests, subscriptions and organization dues.

4-Add your name and address to this picture and thieves have a good starting point if they have big plans and the means to execute them.

The question I now have is what do we normally do with these publications besides reading them? We either throw them away right away or after we browse through them for a while, or leave them on our desks in our offices and homes. Sometimes, we share them with friends or colleagues or place them on a desk or table at work or another public area like doctor’s office to share with others. When and before you do that, remove labels for your own identity safety. Also, remove all magazine inserts which may have your name and address pre printed on them. These are simple awareness points that can inflict you some pain if not taken.

Send me a note if you have a question related to publication labels and magazine inserts.