Privacy Means Profit: Prevent Identity Theft and Secure You and Your Bottom Line

Chapter 16. Prioritize Your Attack: The Privacy Calendar

This chapter lists all of the action items that are important to take to protect your identity. In the Privacy Calendar, however, they are listed by priority rather than mind-set. The order was determined according to three criteria:

1. Which steps need to be taken first to make the process simple?

2. Which actions are most effective at preventing identity theft?

3. Which items are you most likely to complete given time and resource constraints?

The detailed information for taking each of the steps given in this chapter is contained in the individual mind-set chapters, which are shown in italics and enclosed in parentheses following the steps, for easy identification. Salient points of each step are shown in boldface. I strongly recommend that you refer back to each chapter for in-depth explanations of each step.

I also highly recommend that you set up a schedule for yourself and complete the items phase by phase. Take 10 minutes a day, one hour per week, or one weekend a month and schedule time to "accumulate privacy." If you have to wait on one of the action items—for example, you order your credit report but it will be 10 days before you receive it—move on to another of the items further down the list and return to the item you skipped when you receive the report.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating: There is no silver bullet in the world of fraud or identity theft prevention. If someone tells you there is, he or she is probably ...