Bonding an employee is an insurance agreement guaranteeing repayment for financial loss caused to the covered organization by the act or failure to act of an employee. Bonding is used to protect the financial operations of companies and unions. This insurance policy is intended to protect businesses from losses caused by acts of fraud or dishonesty by officers, employees, or other representatives.
Why should I bond my employees?
Purchasing a bond plan keeps your employees honest. But more important than maintaining employee honesty, a bond plan protects your business. Statistics have shown that more than one-third of bankruptcies are caused by internal theft.
When should I bond my employees?
Most insurance companies have a policy of bonding employees as soon as they enter the company, hoping to prevent future theft. It is more likely that internal theft would be committed by a long-time employee, someone that has been with the company for at least 10-15 years, rather than a new employee. Seasoned employees know the ins and outs of the company’s accounting system. They know how to slowly move money without anyone noticing, and by the time the theft is noticed, it is too late to stop it from causing damage.
What kind of insurance plan can I buy?
There are three different types of bond plans :
Name Schedule or Position Schedule Fidelity Bond : In this plan, coverage is placed on specific employees or positions based on a list that you provide. If you decide to have other people covered, you need to contact your insurance company to add them to the list. In order to receive compensation, you need extensive proof that your employee committed a thievery.
Blanket Bond : This type of bond covers all employees, and new employees are added automatically. Coverage is individual, and compensation will be provided up the maximum number determined for the individual. It is not required to prove that a certain individual is responsible for the theft.
Primary Commercial Blanket Bond : This bond also covers all people in the company. Employees are not singled out; they are treated as one unit. Regardless of how many people are involved in a theft, you will be compensated the same amount.
How do I buy a bond policy?
To start using a bond plan, simply contact your insurance policy. You can have bonding added to your general business policy and your broker can help you decide which type of policy is best for you.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Friday, April 18, 2008
Put the Freeze on Identity Theft
There are plenty of common-sense things you can do to curb your risk of identity theft : shred personal documents, guard your Social Security number, and monitor your credit report. But if you really want to roll out the big guns, put a security freeze on your credit file.
A freeze bars anyone from having access to your credit report and credit score without your permission, which means identity thieves will have a tough time opening an account in your name—even if they know your name, date of birth, and Social Security number. That's because lenders generally won't issue new credit without first seeing a credit report.
To put a freeze on your file, you'll have to send a certified letter to each of the three major credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. In most states, the service is free for identity-theft victims who provide a police report. Otherwise, you'll pay about $10 at each credit bureau, unless your state mandates a lower fee.
Freezes don't make sense for everyone, especially young people with a short credit history. The same goes if you're shopping for a mortgage, auto loan, insurance, or a new credit card. That's because you'll have to temporarily lift the freeze using a pin code each time you apply for a new line of credit. (Companies you already do business with can still access your report.) You may also need to suspend the freeze to get an apartment, utility service, or a job that requires a background check.
Suspending your credit file freeze isn't cheap. You'll typically pay another $10 a pop, and the process can take up to 10 business days. To check fees in your state and get instructions on how to place a credit freeze, go to consumersunion.org/securityfreeze.htm.
If you live in South Florida, call MicroShred 1.866.GO.SHRED (1.866.467.4733) and we will come to your home or work and make sure that your identity stays your identity. We use responsible, bonded service personnel to handle your confidential data. All material is shredded on-site, where you can watch if you wish. Shredding is done inside our trucks with state-of-the-art "shear shredders" that for total security, render material impossible to reconstruct. Shredded material is automatically compacted and transported to paper recycling facilities.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF A SHREDDING SERVICE?
Convenience - Your company avoids the responsibility, expense, and clutter of buying, maintaining, and operating your own shredding equipment. Our service can be personalized to fit your company's needs. Whether you need a document shredding service on a monthly, weekly, or daily basis - you tell us how often, we'll be there.
Affordable cost - Utilizing a shredding service is only pennies per pound. Charges are by the frequency that the containers are serviced or by the time the service takes, whichever method is more cost effective you.
Free Storage Containers - We provide free locked security containers which are individually keyed for each client. They are equiped with a one-way slot to conveniently store and secure documents designated for shredding. Our personnel empties the containers, destroys the content in our commercial shredding trucks at your location, and takes the shredded paper to be recycled. No sorting is necessary.
A freeze bars anyone from having access to your credit report and credit score without your permission, which means identity thieves will have a tough time opening an account in your name—even if they know your name, date of birth, and Social Security number. That's because lenders generally won't issue new credit without first seeing a credit report.
To put a freeze on your file, you'll have to send a certified letter to each of the three major credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. In most states, the service is free for identity-theft victims who provide a police report. Otherwise, you'll pay about $10 at each credit bureau, unless your state mandates a lower fee.
Freezes don't make sense for everyone, especially young people with a short credit history. The same goes if you're shopping for a mortgage, auto loan, insurance, or a new credit card. That's because you'll have to temporarily lift the freeze using a pin code each time you apply for a new line of credit. (Companies you already do business with can still access your report.) You may also need to suspend the freeze to get an apartment, utility service, or a job that requires a background check.
Suspending your credit file freeze isn't cheap. You'll typically pay another $10 a pop, and the process can take up to 10 business days. To check fees in your state and get instructions on how to place a credit freeze, go to consumersunion.org/securityfreeze.htm.
If you live in South Florida, call MicroShred 1.866.GO.SHRED (1.866.467.4733) and we will come to your home or work and make sure that your identity stays your identity. We use responsible, bonded service personnel to handle your confidential data. All material is shredded on-site, where you can watch if you wish. Shredding is done inside our trucks with state-of-the-art "shear shredders" that for total security, render material impossible to reconstruct. Shredded material is automatically compacted and transported to paper recycling facilities.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF A SHREDDING SERVICE?
Convenience - Your company avoids the responsibility, expense, and clutter of buying, maintaining, and operating your own shredding equipment. Our service can be personalized to fit your company's needs. Whether you need a document shredding service on a monthly, weekly, or daily basis - you tell us how often, we'll be there.
Affordable cost - Utilizing a shredding service is only pennies per pound. Charges are by the frequency that the containers are serviced or by the time the service takes, whichever method is more cost effective you.
Free Storage Containers - We provide free locked security containers which are individually keyed for each client. They are equiped with a one-way slot to conveniently store and secure documents designated for shredding. Our personnel empties the containers, destroys the content in our commercial shredding trucks at your location, and takes the shredded paper to be recycled. No sorting is necessary.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Medical Identity Theft Turns Patients Into Victims
If identity thieves were to disregard your financial accounts and instead target your medical information, your first thought might well be, “Take my medical identity. Please.” What nut would want your high cholesterol, trick knee, and family history of Alzheimer’s? The answer is simple: one without health insurance who needs surgery or prescription drugs, or someone who sees a medical ID as the open sesame that will allow him or her to collect millions in false medical claims. These thieves don’t actually want your medical ailments, of course, but by pretending to be you they can get what they’re really after. Untangling the mess is hard: Unlike financial identity theft, there’s no straightforward process for challenging false medical claims or correcting inaccurate medical records. For victims, the result can be thousands in unpaid charges, damaged credit, and bogus, possibly dangerous details cluttering up their medical records for years to come.
Richard Robb of Mayo helped develop this ‘vision dome’ to immerse doctors in a scan, letting them travel through the insides of a heart.
Medical identity theft currently accounts for just 3 percent of identity theft crimes, or 249,000 of the estimated 8.3 million people who had their identities lifted in 2005, according to the Federal Trade Commission. But as the push toward electronic medical records gains momentum, privacy experts worry those numbers may grow substantially. They’re concerned that as doctors and hospitals switch from paper records to EMRs, as they’re called, it may become easier for people to gain unauthorized access to sensitive patient information on a large scale. In addition, Microsoft, Revolution Health, and, just this week, Google have announced they’re developing services that will allow consumers to store their health information online. Consumers may not even know their records have been compromised. In January, a new law took effect in California that requires providers to let consumers know if their medical information has been “breached.” But only a handful of other states spell out notification requirements regarding unauthorized release of patient medical data. In contrast, most states have so-called breach laws that address accidental disclosures of financial information; these may also apply to medical data in certain instances. This month, Democratic Reps. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, with support from several privacy groups and Microsoft, introduced a bill that would strengthen safeguards protecting access to consumers’ medical information and make it a federal requirement to notify patients if their healthcare data get exposed.
Read more of this article herehttp://health.usnews.com/articles/health/living-well-usn/2008/02/29/medical-identity-theft-turns-patients-into-victims.html?PageNr=1
Richard Robb of Mayo helped develop this ‘vision dome’ to immerse doctors in a scan, letting them travel through the insides of a heart.
Medical identity theft currently accounts for just 3 percent of identity theft crimes, or 249,000 of the estimated 8.3 million people who had their identities lifted in 2005, according to the Federal Trade Commission. But as the push toward electronic medical records gains momentum, privacy experts worry those numbers may grow substantially. They’re concerned that as doctors and hospitals switch from paper records to EMRs, as they’re called, it may become easier for people to gain unauthorized access to sensitive patient information on a large scale. In addition, Microsoft, Revolution Health, and, just this week, Google have announced they’re developing services that will allow consumers to store their health information online. Consumers may not even know their records have been compromised. In January, a new law took effect in California that requires providers to let consumers know if their medical information has been “breached.” But only a handful of other states spell out notification requirements regarding unauthorized release of patient medical data. In contrast, most states have so-called breach laws that address accidental disclosures of financial information; these may also apply to medical data in certain instances. This month, Democratic Reps. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, with support from several privacy groups and Microsoft, introduced a bill that would strengthen safeguards protecting access to consumers’ medical information and make it a federal requirement to notify patients if their healthcare data get exposed.
Read more of this article herehttp://health.usnews.com/articles/health/living-well-usn/2008/02/29/medical-identity-theft-turns-patients-into-victims.html?PageNr=1
Identity Theft News on CBS
http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=676656n
(CBS) Almost 10 million Americans were victims of identity theft last year. And the recent revelation of a major security breach at the private data broker ChoicePoint has focused even more attention on the growing problem.
Few people know more about identify theft than John Harrison. In an ironic twist, when the president of ChoicePoint wrote a book on identity theft, he went to Harrison.
The Connecticut salesman has spent over 2,000 hours trying to reclaim his life after having his identity stolen, and his home office has become a shrine to the suffering, reports CBS News Correspondent Byron Pitts.
“I had to come up with a filing system,” says Harrison of his efforts to clear his name.
Harrison was a victim nearly four years ago, when a 20-year-old stole his identity and literally went for a ride.
“Lowes, Home Depot, Sears, JC Penny, two cars from Ford, a Harley, a Kawasaki motorcycle,” says Harrison, listing off the purchases made in his name. “About $265,000 in four months.”
Police arrested and prosecuted the thief, Jerry Phillips, and he even went to prison for three years.
“Sorry. You know, I wish I could make it up to you,” Phillips said of his wrongdoing.
With an apologetic theif behind bars, Harrison thought he was lucky — but was he wrong. Despite letters from the Justice Department confirming that he was a victim, Harrison and millions of others are still being harassed by creditors. In fact, he remains nearly $140,000 in debt.
“It keeps coming,” says Harrison. “It keeps coming and you don’t have a choice but to deal with it.”
Some suggestions for victims of identity theft include :
File a police report immediately
Contact the 3 major credit bureaus — and your creditors
Keep records of all transactions
Hire an attorney
Eric Gertler, an identity theft expert, says that Harrison’s experience reflects the unfairness of the whole system.
“The problem with identity theft is that once you’re a victim you’re guilty until proven innocent,” says Gertler. “You need to go to the financial institution and prove to them that you’re not just some other deadbeat trying to get away with not paying your bills.”
John Harrison followed all the rules.
“I was in a corner. I had already done everything the law told me I should be doing. And it didn’t work,” he says.
He says the many victims whose identities were compromised by ChoicePoint can expect “the same thing.”
What angers John Harrison is that he followed all the rules and finds himself in debt because of a thief, and a bad thief at that. In fact, on one of the forged checks, Harrison’s name was spelled incorrectly.
“He didn’t have to be bright to steal your identification, but you have to be perfect to stop him?” asked Pitts.
“Absolutely, you have to be more than perfect.”
Harrison’s advice, before you ever become a victm, check your credit report frequently.
(CBS) Almost 10 million Americans were victims of identity theft last year. And the recent revelation of a major security breach at the private data broker ChoicePoint has focused even more attention on the growing problem.
Few people know more about identify theft than John Harrison. In an ironic twist, when the president of ChoicePoint wrote a book on identity theft, he went to Harrison.
The Connecticut salesman has spent over 2,000 hours trying to reclaim his life after having his identity stolen, and his home office has become a shrine to the suffering, reports CBS News Correspondent Byron Pitts.
“I had to come up with a filing system,” says Harrison of his efforts to clear his name.
Harrison was a victim nearly four years ago, when a 20-year-old stole his identity and literally went for a ride.
“Lowes, Home Depot, Sears, JC Penny, two cars from Ford, a Harley, a Kawasaki motorcycle,” says Harrison, listing off the purchases made in his name. “About $265,000 in four months.”
Police arrested and prosecuted the thief, Jerry Phillips, and he even went to prison for three years.
“Sorry. You know, I wish I could make it up to you,” Phillips said of his wrongdoing.
With an apologetic theif behind bars, Harrison thought he was lucky — but was he wrong. Despite letters from the Justice Department confirming that he was a victim, Harrison and millions of others are still being harassed by creditors. In fact, he remains nearly $140,000 in debt.
“It keeps coming,” says Harrison. “It keeps coming and you don’t have a choice but to deal with it.”
Some suggestions for victims of identity theft include :
File a police report immediately
Contact the 3 major credit bureaus — and your creditors
Keep records of all transactions
Hire an attorney
Eric Gertler, an identity theft expert, says that Harrison’s experience reflects the unfairness of the whole system.
“The problem with identity theft is that once you’re a victim you’re guilty until proven innocent,” says Gertler. “You need to go to the financial institution and prove to them that you’re not just some other deadbeat trying to get away with not paying your bills.”
John Harrison followed all the rules.
“I was in a corner. I had already done everything the law told me I should be doing. And it didn’t work,” he says.
He says the many victims whose identities were compromised by ChoicePoint can expect “the same thing.”
What angers John Harrison is that he followed all the rules and finds himself in debt because of a thief, and a bad thief at that. In fact, on one of the forged checks, Harrison’s name was spelled incorrectly.
“He didn’t have to be bright to steal your identification, but you have to be perfect to stop him?” asked Pitts.
“Absolutely, you have to be more than perfect.”
Harrison’s advice, before you ever become a victm, check your credit report frequently.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Confidential Document Destruction : Top 20 Things to Shred
One of the fastest growing crimes of our time is identity theft. In recent years, identity thieves have left many people feeling uneasy and with good reason. As soon as someone steals something that can provide them with your identity, such as financial records, legal documents, or medical records, they can use everything that you have worked for to their benefit.
It is relatively easy for someone to steal your identity, especially for those who know what they are doing. Once your information has been stolen, your bank account can be emptied or the balance on your credit cards can be run up. It is hard to catch an identity thief and it’s not easy to fix what they have done. The best way to be safe from identity theft is to prevent it. In order to protect yourself, you need to know what a thief is looking for and be sure to shred such documents.
Here are the top 20 documents to shred (in no particular order) to protect yourself against identity theft :
1. Financial records are an obvious hit for identity theft. These documents contain all your financial information, possibly even your account numbers.
2. Magnetic media – tapes, disks, CD’s or anything storing electronic data.
3. Payroll records. These documents contain how much money you make, exactly what thieves want to know.
4. Legal documents. Even though these documents might not contain financial information, they most likely contain personal information that can lead to your financial info.
5. Account records – which contain personal information like your address, phone number and sometimes even your social security number.
6. Medical records
7. Class Rosters
8. Maps and blueprints
9. New product proposals. If this falls into the hands of a thief, they can propose your product before you do.
10. Inventory lists. This is like a map for a robbery. Knowing what you have makes it really easy to know what to steal.
11. Confidential correspondence – such as letters, emails, etc.
12. Customer lists and estimates
13. Tax records. Tax records contain lots of personal information. Also how high your taxes are is dependent on how much you make.
14. Outdated business records
15. Invoices
16. Cancelled checks
17. Price Lists
18. Microfilm and fiche
19. Credit and ID Cards
20. Junk Mail – this is overlooked quite often.
It is relatively easy for someone to steal your identity, especially for those who know what they are doing. Once your information has been stolen, your bank account can be emptied or the balance on your credit cards can be run up. It is hard to catch an identity thief and it’s not easy to fix what they have done. The best way to be safe from identity theft is to prevent it. In order to protect yourself, you need to know what a thief is looking for and be sure to shred such documents.
Here are the top 20 documents to shred (in no particular order) to protect yourself against identity theft :
1. Financial records are an obvious hit for identity theft. These documents contain all your financial information, possibly even your account numbers.
2. Magnetic media – tapes, disks, CD’s or anything storing electronic data.
3. Payroll records. These documents contain how much money you make, exactly what thieves want to know.
4. Legal documents. Even though these documents might not contain financial information, they most likely contain personal information that can lead to your financial info.
5. Account records – which contain personal information like your address, phone number and sometimes even your social security number.
6. Medical records
7. Class Rosters
8. Maps and blueprints
9. New product proposals. If this falls into the hands of a thief, they can propose your product before you do.
10. Inventory lists. This is like a map for a robbery. Knowing what you have makes it really easy to know what to steal.
11. Confidential correspondence – such as letters, emails, etc.
12. Customer lists and estimates
13. Tax records. Tax records contain lots of personal information. Also how high your taxes are is dependent on how much you make.
14. Outdated business records
15. Invoices
16. Cancelled checks
17. Price Lists
18. Microfilm and fiche
19. Credit and ID Cards
20. Junk Mail – this is overlooked quite often.
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