If your filing system consists of piles of paper on the kitchen counter – or bulging file folders in an unlocked drawer – you could be setting yourself up for identity theft, Better Business Bureau warns.

“Identity theft prevention starts with safekeeping your records,” said Kim States, BBB President.  “Important documents shouldn’t be left out where anybody who comes into your home or office can find them easily. They should be secured in a safe place. Outdated records should be shredded.”

BBB sponsors two “shred days” each year, in Tucson and Sierra Vista, for consumers and businesses. Participants receive information on how to protect their identities, and they can shred as many documents as they like for a small donation.
While online identity theft gets lots of headlines, theft by someone who has access to your home is actually more common. People who work around your house, friends, even relatives can be tempted to pick up a credit card bill or bank statement left lying on a countertop.

The FTC estimates that as many as 9 million Americans have their identities stolen each year, costing individuals and businesses nearly $50 billion. Arizona is the worst state for identity theft, with around 300,000 people in the state having their identity stolen annually.

So what should you keep and how long should you keep it? Here’s a list of types of documents and suggested retention times:

• Tax returns and supporting documents should be kept for eight years. Supporting documents may include charitable donation receipts, medical bills and property tax records, for example.
• Records on contributions to individual retirement accounts should be kept permanently.
• Retirement and savings plan statements should be kept from one year to permanently. Keep the monthly or quarterly statements until the end of the year, then keep the year-end statement and (more…)

April Fool’s Day came early this year for the employees of Welsch Heating & Cooling Company. The Maryland Heights, Mo., business received an e-mail informing it that it had won a prestigious 2009 “Best of Business” award from the Small Business Commerce Association. The  problem, according to Better Business Bureau of Southern Arizona, is that the only qualification for the award is paying for it.

Butch Welsch, owner and president of the heating and cooling firm, said he was suspicious of the e-mail from the start.  “I didn’t think a random e-mail would be the way we would be notified of an award,” he said.  “It seemed very phony.”

The fake award is yet another example of a widespread “vanity awards” scam that has been trying to hook businesses all over the country, including in Southern Arizona, for years by selling them inscribed plaques and trophies that cost $50 to $100 each.

Several months ago,  BBB alerted businesses about the Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Commerce Association.  Like the U.S. Commerce Association, San Francisco-based Small Business Commerce Association appears to have no real standing as a business organization. It seems to exist solely to get businesses to buy its products.

“People enjoy pulling innocent pranks on each other on April 1,” said BBB President Kim States, “but it isn’t funny when people go into business with the year-round intent of deceiving others to enrich themselves.”

BBB says a variety of businesses make money by offering products that depend on trickery and deception.  The businesses range from vanity awards programs to businesses that help customers mislead or deceive prospective employers and others.  Among them:

• Fake diploma, transcript and resume companies. Many of these businesses maintain that the fakes are for “novelty” purposes only, but it is clear that the materials can be used to mislead the public and employers. “Is your lack of a degree holding you back from career advancement?” asked a recent e-mail received in the BBB offices. “Call us right now for your customized (more…)

While the volume of data breaches declined in 2009, data breaches at businesses—as opposed to the government or non-profit sector—are on the rise.  Better Business Bureau of Southern Arizona recommends that small business owners take steps to protect their data and also develop a plan of action in order to react quickly and reduce the damage if a data breach does occur.

There were more than 498 reported data breaches in 2009, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center. While this is an improvement from the 657 breaches in 2008, unfortunately, the share of data breaches occurring in the business sector, specifically, increased to 41 percent.

“Even when a company takes all necessary precautions, a data breach can occur as the result of a malicious attack or employee error,” said Kim States, BBB President. “The key to limiting the damage—and retaining customer trust—is to develop an action plan in case a data breach does strike your business.”

Resolving a data breach can be costly to a business, not only because of the time and energy spent resolving the issue, but also due to the number of customers whose trust in the business was lost in the wake of the breach. According to U.S. Cost of a Data Breach Study released by PGP Corporation and the Ponemon Institute, data breach incidents cost U.S. companies $204 per compromised customer record.

BBB recommends that small business owners take the following steps to prepare the business and reduce the damage in the event of a data breach:

• Create a Data Breach Notification Policy.
  A data breach notification policy tells consumers how your business will notify customers if a data breach occurs. Consider informing consumers that you will notify them through a quicker and relatively inexpensive method (e.g., e-mail or publication) instead of a more expensive method (e.g., US mail). However, there are state-specific laws on the notification delivery method, so consult with an attorney before sending out any notices.

• Train Your Employees to Identify Breaches.
  Employees need to know how to spot a potential breach and how to report this type of event. More information on the red flags of a data breach is available in Chapter 7 of BBB’s new (more…)