264. Adam Levin on Identity Theft and How to Protect Yourself from Scammers, Phishers, and Fraudsters of All Types
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Increasingly, identity theft is a fact of life: from fake companies selling \\u201ccredit card insurance\\u201d; criminal, medical, and child identity theft; catphishers, tax fraud, fake debt collectors who threaten you with legal action; and much more. We might once have hoped to protect ourselves from hackers with airtight passwords and aggressive spam filters, and those are good ideas as far as they go. But with the breaches of huge organizations like Target, AshleyMadison.com, JPMorgan Chase, Sony, Anthem, and even the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, more than a billion personal records have already been stolen, and chances are good that you\\u2019re already in harm\\u2019s way. This doesn\\u2019t mean there\\u2019s no hope. Your identity may get stolen, but it doesn\\u2019t have to be a life-changing event.
In this conversation, Shermer speaks with Adam Levin, a consumer advocate with more than 30 years\\u2019 experience in personal finance, privacy, real estate and government service. A former director of the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs, Levin is Chairman and founder of CyberScout. A longtime consumer advocate and identity fraud expert, Levin provides a method to help you keep hackers, phishers, and spammers from becoming your problem. As Levin shows, these folks get a lot less scary if you see them coming.
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