Hello, John, it's good to see you today we have such an important topic, cyber security, keeping yourself and your finances safe online. I was so surprised to learn that every two seconds someone becomes a victim of identity theft. And you have some really great action steps, including one that I hadn't ever heard of, but I'm gonna start today create a secret email address for your financial accounts. That is such a good idea.

Yeah, and you don't even by my own admission, right identity theft was a huge part of my background and the former rule of law enforcement. We saw it all the time, but I myself very own thoughts. I have a secret email address just for financial accounts, had credit and had tip to Devin Croft, who we had on our podcast a couple of weeks ago talking about identity theft. She came up with this idea and what you know, when we talk email addresses where we have our personal email address for friends and family and businesses we want to do business with and then we have that junk email, right? Oh, for the free download or or subscription. Yeah, you know, that's the email that we really don't take serious. But I've never thought to have a actual email just for your financial accounts as something I'm going to be bringing to my clients and I know my clients will be watching this video. So create a secret email address just for those specific financial accounts. Like in our case, TD Ameritrade. The big thing is that I want to key in on this is the second bullet point. Do not use any identifying information. Don't use your first name, last name initials. Use something like a hobby or a key word or slogan you may like but do not have any identifying information. And it's really just to keep those financial emails accounts separate from the rest.

Really good idea. All right. Second point of action here is set up instant text or email alerts for your credit and bank cards.

Yes, absolutely. Because you know, this is a proactive step, but it's really in a reactive situation. If, if you are a victim of identity theft, and they start using your credit card or debit card you want those notifications of a fraudulent possible fraudulent purchase or transaction in your bank account as soon as possible. So you can start limiting the damage and stopping everything and you know we have it with our credit cards where we may make a purchase online and our credit card company will deny the purchase initially until we confirm the purchase. So it does it's easy. All it takes is you allowing the push notification like on your phone and then just checking the push notification through a text message and saying yes, we made that purchase or no,

absolutely well worth it. Now on the other side of that coin, beware debit cards, they just don't have the same kind of protections that credit cards do.

Yeah, and this is a little bit of the more old school hacking that I saw a lot in law enforcement. I always encourage people and my wife and I, we spend with our credit cards because the credit cards have their own monitoring service. And if you have a fraudulent transaction, you can dispute that with the credit card and they should be handling that with your debit card. That's direct access to your bank account. We do not want that. And you know for a long time, a lot of scam artists would have card readers that they would install on gas stations or whatnot then they would sit back and videotape people from a distance and get their codes. And then the next thing you know your drink your bank account was being drained.

Right? All right last year, freeze your credit and protect your children. Let's take those one at a time. Freezing your credit rather easy and very important.

Yeah, so a lot of people like the you know, identity theft monitoring services. And we talked with Devin about this. They're nice, but again, they're a they're a proactive step for a reactive solution. Right? You only get a monitoring when something has already happened. Your email address has been on the dark web, your social security or phone number by freezing your credit that's free and they cannot do any major purchases on your behalf that will affect your credit score. Yes, you know, it's it's an extra step you're gonna have to unfreeze it if you're gonna make a car purchase and you know Bree and I'll be be making a couple car purchases this year. We're gonna have to go through those steps. However, we believe in shielding your financial well being and your finances. This is a step in and on for a lot of our clients that have significant wealth. This is a big step in protecting those assets.Right right. Now let's get to protect your children. Children are targeted because they have a clean credit report and because often their credit isn't frozen. So we need to kind of apply the same rules to them.

Yeah, and they are targeted because they're not making any big purchases. So their their credit score, could be you know, their credit could be being manipulated by thieves and criminals and you have no idea because you have no reason to. So children are a big target. I will caution you with this, Aaron, we're talking about this beforehand. You do have to go through the extra steps of sending your birth certificate into the credit monitoring service. So you know, be aware of that, but again, kids are a huge target. So you need to have their credit protected also.

This I think the big takeaway here John has to be there's a lot of proactive steps you can take. You might feel silly or it might be a headache. But in the long run, it's all well worth it.

Yeah, and yeah, that's, unfortunately in today's age. You have to take the extra steps, right. You know, way back in the days of Mayberry, we can leave our doors unlocked. Now you have to take the extra step of lock your door. Well guess what, folks? Now you have to take the extra step of locking that financial door. So it trust me to get things set up. It does take a little bit of time. But once it's set up, everything's easy and regardless, it's much easier than unwinding. Absolutely a victim of identity theft. Absolutely.

And I just want to remind everybody watching that your clients will be getting a really special value add this month that kind of outlines other cybersecurity points that they should take, right.

Yeah, it's gonna be a cybersecurity checklist and quiz. So you know, we are very committed to protecting our clients assets, whether it's nursing home state, the market taxes, and identity theft.

All right, and John, what's the best way to get a hold of you if somebody wants some help doing any of these things that we've mentioned?Yeah, you can go ahead and always visit our website www.go securus.com. We always are posting new information on there. Or you can click on the contact us tab and schedule a 15 minute phone call or 60 minute complimentary consultation. Or if you want to go the old school way give us a call at the office a 858-935-6210All right, John, thank you. Thank you Erin