A near-empty bank account for Paypal or other 
online payment services is a very good idea. . . 
Me, I just *refuse* to hook up any bank account 
to my Paypal and the credit card I do use with 
Paypal is one for which the activity can be 
monitored online. I don't see new charges at the 
end of the month, I see them *immediately*.

But some important tips on preventing identity 
theft are as follows:

Completely shred any unused credit card offers 
received in the mail. Better, call 1-800-5-OPT-OUT
(this is a US number only, I think) to stop 
receiving them in the first place. Reduces junk 
mail for you AND eliminates one place identity 
theives can find you. I did it - it's legitamate 
and it WORKS.

Carry only ONE credit card. If you *need* more 
than one, keep it to two. The more different 
credit cards you have, the more places there are 
that someone can look up your information.

Get OFF as many mailing lists as you can. If you 
get a solicitation over the telephone, have this 
quote memorized: "This number accepts no 
solicitations. Take me off your list." The first 
part especially contains the magic words after 
which they legally MUST remove you from the list. 
Believe me - try it and in five months, almost no 
call will be a telemarketer.

Also keep yourself off new mailing lists. If you 
MUST fill out a form with your name and address, 
etc, always put next to the information in bold 
black ink: "NO MAILING LISTS". Tell EVERYONE with 
your information that you do not wish to receive 
ANY non-essential mailings, and when signing up 
for accounts online watch for "yes I want 
junkmail" checkboxes that need to be unchecked!

Do not use your social security number for 
ANYTHING - not your driver's licence, school ID, 
or passwords for bank accounts/etc. I believe 
it's still free to ask the DMV to issue you a new 
licence number (which will start with an 'S') if 
your licence still carries your SS#. If you have 
an 'S' licence number, that's the ONLY thing 
someone needs if you get into a car accident. (I 
had someone hit me in the car and on seeing the
'S' number, began to demand she needed my real 
SS#. I refused to give it. Good thing I knew 
better - her info was completely bogus when I 
tried to contact her later about the "accident".) 
Never give out your social security number for 
anything that doesn't require it - demand to be 
issued a random number.

Do not send credit card numbers over the internet 
more than once if possible. A lot of cel dealers 
will happily keep that information in their 
private files so you don't have to resend it - 
including but not limited to: Yann, Curt at 
Asylum, Ed Noonchester Artwork, AnimeEd, and 
either Mandarake store (LA or JP). Only send your 
credit card info over a secure line. If you need 
to fax it, and your fax machine says the fax was 
successfull, have the store in question confirm 
they *DID* receive the fax.

NEVER share e-mail accounts!! There is NO reason 
to do so anymore. Most ISPs offer multiple 
individual accounts with a single membership - I 
can have up to *six* with my ISP. If your ISP 
doesn't allow it, IE will allow you to set up 
multiple accounts off a single membership.

Never share auction IDs - for Ebay IDs, always 
investigate anyone requesting your information. 
(Ebay will notify you if someone does this.)

And then the obvious: NEVER give out any personal 
information that you don't have to. If you don't 
need to use your real name, don't. (Online forms 
for sites like EZboard happily accept "Drac" as 
my real name.) Never give out unless necessary: 
address, SS# (can't stress enough!), mother's 
maiden name, exact date of birth, PIN numbers for 
bank accounts, passwords for online accounts.

Don't use your mother's maiden name as an access 
OK with your bank. (If someone tried to use my 
mother's maiden name to access my bank account 
information, they'd be denied.) Same with credit 
cards. Mother's maiden names aren't so tough to 
look up anymore as they used to be.

Keeping your identity safe isn't something you do 
once and forget about it - you have to keep up 
with it at all times. And if *anything* ever 
seems strange, you're better safe than sorry! 
Close or freeze all bank accounts, cancel all 
your credit cards and ask new ones with new 
numbers to be issued, contact the DMV to make 
sure no new licences have been requested/issued 
in your name, contact all your creditors to 
inform them of the problem, and most importantly 
contact the three major credit reproting agencies 
by both telephone and writing to request a fraud 
investigation. In the US, that's "Equifax" in 
Atlanta, GA; "Experian" in Allen, TX; and
"Transunion" in Fullerton, CA. (If anyone would 
like those addresses and phone numbers, just ask.)

Many Sharp Smiles,
--Drac