Keeping Your Finances and Identity Safe This Holiday Season

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:21):
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Speaker 2 (00:33):
As his money in motion with cost Financial right here
on thirteen ten double uiba the website for cost Financial.
It's just that costfinancial dot com. That's Coss Klaas Financial
dot com. Great website to learn more about Coss Financial.
There's separate divisions. You can get to know the team
at cost Financial. You can also sign up for the
weekly Market Pulse newsletter that available to you at cossfinancial

(00:56):
dot com. That's Coss Klaas Financial dot com. Their telephone
number six oh eight four four two five six three seven.
No charge for that initial get to know you appointment
Tech Costs Financial. It will be complementary to you again
their number six oh eight four four two five, six
three seven and joining us this morning from Class Financial
our retirement planning professionals CJ Closs and Malia Quavis.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
CJ.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
How you doing this morning?

Speaker 4 (01:19):
I'm doing great?

Speaker 3 (01:20):
How are you?

Speaker 4 (01:20):
Sean?

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Doing well? Great to chat with you, Malia, how.

Speaker 4 (01:23):
Have you been very good?

Speaker 3 (01:25):
It's a little chilly outside, isn't.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
It just a little And it's a little snow, just
enough to make it a little little Harry, Yeah, yeah,
so it definitely looks nice out there, I guess. But
we've got obviously plenty of more more to come, so we'll, uh,
we'll talk weather and snow and weeks. We'll think about
that later. Let's talk about fun stuff this morning. An
opportunity to win a fantastic prize with the Class Quiz

(01:49):
Quest Leak a fantastic feature of the program this week,
no exception of a chance to win a twenty five
dollars gift card to Best Buy from our friends at
Class Financial. Little tip for the Class Quiz Quest Leak
most of the time, just about every time both the
question and answer to the class quiz question we come
up during the program, so definitely benefits to play. Pay
close attention to the show mentioned as well the website

(02:12):
Classfinancial dot com. I mentioned the weekly Market Pulse newsletter.
I didn't mention. If you miss any part of today's
program or want to listen back to the shows, you
can actually listen to the podcast right online at clossfinancial
dot com. This week we're going to talk about with
the holiday season upon us, fraud big thing things you
can do to help prevent potential fraud and some really
important tips ahead on this week's program. And before we

(02:33):
start talking about that topic, let's actually take a look
back Maliah at last week's program and look at the
Class Quiz question week. Get the question and answer there
as well.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
Yeah, so as we're wrapping up twenty twenty four, we
like to point out things people should be aware of,
which last week we discussed required minimum distributions. What you
should know about that and just make sure that you
are on track to have taken out everything you are
required to take out and pay taxes on. Well, thank
you for that, so make sure you listen back to

(03:02):
that show. Our question revolved around rmds true or false
if you were born in nineteen sixty or after your
RMD age is currently set for age seventy five. The
answer to that question was true, and Dennis I. WannaKey
was our first correct answer for calling in last week,
so congratulations to him. Listen carefully to today's show.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Very very good program last week. Congratulations to Dennis, and
as mentioned, you can listen back to last week's program.
Really important information and a really good show again that's
available to you at klossfinancial dot com. This week, of course,
we'll be talking about as we look towards the holiday season,
a lot of folks start spending more money around the holidays,
and of course you want to keep track of money,

(03:47):
and of course money in and out of your accounts,
also things like credit cards, some changes there, maybe a
notice something that I didn't make that. So today we're
actually going to be talking about some great tips to
help potential fraud, aren't we CJ.

Speaker 4 (04:01):
Yeah, we are. So this time of the year, we're
all so busy with everything with holiday shopping and getting
ready for family to come over, that it can be
easy to get distracted and miss some important things that
might be happening behind the scenes. So the FTC, the
Federal Trade Commission, reports that consumers lost over ten billion,

(04:21):
yes billion with a B last year due to fraud,
and obviously we don't want anyone becoming one of these
statistics and being part of that fraud category. So we
spend a lot of time working with individuals helping them
plan for their retirement. And while we're not trying to
scare anyone, we truly do want people to be aware
of how they can protect themselves. So, believe it or not,

(04:44):
in our line of work being retirement planning, financial planners,
investment advisors, fraud shows up. It shows up in the
form of people calling us and saying, hey, I need
money out of my account to get the lottery winnings
out of the vault, and we go say we or
I need money out because I need to go buy
some gift cards because my child is in jail and

(05:07):
Ghana and we say what. So you get the idea
not to mention, you know, fraudulent access to accounts, all
of this. So that is the topic we're going to
be discussing today. So let's begin with online safety for
our listeners. This begins with robust password practices. Strong passwords
really are your first line of a good defense. So

(05:30):
A secure password should combine uppercase and lower case letters, numbers,
and special characters, avoid personal information like names or birthdays,
birth dates, and use unique passwords for every account. This
will prevent a breach in one account from compromising others.

(05:50):
So listen. I am part of a household. I have
teenage daughters and a ten year old son. I have
a spouse. I know just how easy it is to
use the same replica over and over and over, especially
if you say, well, gosh, I can't remember all the
unique ones, so I'll just do three or four or

(06:11):
five different variations. Listen, I've heard it all. I've seen
it all, and what I can say to you is,
don't go down the easy paths of using the same replicas,
or of using really easy usernames and passwords, or of
saying I'll just write it down on my desk on

(06:32):
a piece of paper. Don't do it. Instead, if you're
willing to be humble and listen to this, we're going
to give you some steps where you can use unique
you use unique user names and passwords, but still have
it be secure and have it be something that you
can access and remember. So stick with us here. So again,
an uppercase, lowercase numbers, special characters, don't use any consistency,

(06:56):
don't use birthdays and names, and believe it or not,
here's a fun little fact for you. The most common
passwords that are used are one two three four one
one one one one one one uh the most one
of the most common passwords is password. Another one is
admin one two three or zero zero zero zero zero

(07:16):
zero zero. Don't do that. Don't do that, and people go, oh,
don't worry, I don't I just use my data birth
don't do that either, right. Make it completely unique, something
that if you relied on your brain, you would never
be able to remember. Okay, and we're going to talk
about how you're going to gain access to that because
you might be going, well, how do you do that?

(07:37):
If it's completely unique, I would never remember. We'll get
to that in a moment.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Talking this morning with CJ. Colssimlia Quavis our retirement planning
professionals from Class Financial, the website class financial dot com.
That's closs k l A A S Financial dot com
and they're telphone number six so eight four four two
five six three seven. So let's got to get into
some of those security features out there CJ.

Speaker 4 (07:56):
Yeah. So so one enhanced security measure that we are
huge fans of is known as MFA multi factor authentication.
It's the idea of I have a unique username, a
unique password, and then even beyond that, I have to
have a secondary layer of authentication. Now, this could be
things like a like Microsoft has an app that you

(08:18):
can download that generates a unique code. This could also
be your cell phone that you get a text message
text to you so that when you're logging in, it
just texts you if it's a known IP address. Huge
fans of multi factor authentication that just by that feature alone,
you will dramatically reduce the likelihood of somebody fraudulently accessing

(08:41):
your account, because, as you can imagine, if somebody accidentally
gets old of that information and you don't have multi
factor authentication, boom, they're into your account. But if instead
you say, well, gosh, I have these unique things going on,
but I accidentally shared it with the wrong person, or
I put it on it, whatever, you dramatically reduce probability
of them getting in there if a text message has
to come to you. Okay, so I've been hinting at this.

(09:05):
We do understand that Managing multiple passwords and user names
that are all unique can be overwhelming, which is where
a password manager comes in handy. Now, I just want
to address because I've heard this from innumerable clients and
friends and family members, but CJ, can you really say
to me that your solution for managing passwords is to

(09:26):
put them online? Yes? Yes, And I know that sounds crazy,
but the answer is yes. Otherwise your solution is what
to put it in your purse, to put it in
your desk, to put it in a little black folder
that anybody can go grab and steal, at which point
you lose them all. There are professional password storage managers

(09:47):
that have military level encryption. Listen. The military uses these,
the federal government uses these. That are password storage managers
that are very secure that require like six different ways.
There are six different layers of security to get into them.
Some of them would be like one password. I noticed
during the last I think it was a maybe it

(10:09):
was the World Cup or the or the some sort
of football game that they were referencing one password. But
one password is a great one. It's actually one that
we use here at Class Financial. Another one is nord
pass or dash lane, and there's many others. Do your research,
find one with military grade encryption on it, get very
involved in understanding how it works, and then use that

(10:30):
password storage manager. So listen, everybody, I personally between business
and family, have upwards of one hundred different, completely unique
user names and passwords. I would never be able to
remember those. If I was relying on my brain, I
would not have much uniqueness to it at all. But

(10:51):
because I have one password, I can generate those, I
can save those, and then any time I go to
the site, I can just go in. And you might go,
what do you mean one password? One password is the
name of the technology. I need one password to access
my plethora of unique user names and passwords. Gaining acts

(11:12):
to that. Access to that requires a lot of security.
So do your due diligence and get involved in that.
But I just cannot suggest to you enough. We see
so much problem in the way that our clients, our
family and friends are handling user names and passwords. We
just can't suggest enough. Really, do your due diligence and

(11:32):
set something up that's that's more secure.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
One of thanks too. I heard you mentioned there too,
And sometimes people are saying like, well, what about generating
those passwords. A lot of these programs will generate just
really long, really complex, really secure passwords and do that
for you as well, something that you would never in
a millionaires think of. And that's one of the great benefits.
We talked this morning with CJ COLSS MOLEI Equavis. They

(11:55):
are our retirement planning professionals from Class Fangel So CJ,
let's talk about then, protect your identity and excuse me, Maleia,
I apologize protecting your identity and why now it's such
an important thing compared maybe with years previous.

Speaker 3 (12:10):
Yeah, so it certainly is, and we're going to talk
about the idea of a credit freeze. But I did
want to reflect on what CJ said about these passwords.
You know, I walked into an office depot recently and
looking at their stationery and so forth, and I came
across a little black book and it said password book,

(12:32):
and I just cringed. I'm like, these are still for sale.
People are still buying these people are writing their passwords
in them, and you know what, they put them in
their purse if they're you know, the ladies, or their
backpacks or and I'm like, no, we cannot go backwards
because that is just not going to be a good situation. So,

(12:53):
you know, we talk about everyone when we have these
conversations with our clients.

Speaker 4 (12:57):
This is what we hear.

Speaker 3 (12:59):
They say, Well, I I'm sharp, I'm not going to
respond to anything that's emailed to me if I don't
know where it's coming from. We're going to get into
that in a minute. Everyone believes that they won't be
the person that actually has fraud committed against them, and
that's where we're like, actually, it can happen at any point.

(13:22):
I'll tell you a personal story. My daughter noticed this
is last year. She noticed that she had two charges
on her checking account that did not belong to her.
They were very small charges from Google for about three
dollars four dollars, and she reported to the bank right away.
They said, oh, it's nothing to worry about, you know,

(13:44):
we'll let you know if there's an issue. Well, two
days later, day four, they had taken the fraudsters had
taken ten thousand dollars out of her checking account. She
called the bank back and fortunately after two months they
did say, oh, yeah, it was our fault. We should
have we should have done something more about that. When
you first reported it. But they had to prove that

(14:07):
it was fraudulent. That's how fast these things can happen.
You might click on something you may have total had
nothing to do with it. We just want you to
be on top of everything you're doing. And again, as
CG said, in the holiday season, we get wrapped up
in other things and it's harder to keep track.

Speaker 5 (14:27):
Black Friday is coming. And for the adults in your
life who love the coolest toys, well there's something for
them this year too. Bartisian is the premiere craft cocktail
maker that automatically makes more than sixty seasonal and classic
cocktails each and out of thirty seconds at the push
of a button. And right now, Batisian is having a
huge sight wide sale. You can get one hundred dollars

(14:48):
off any cocktail maker or cocktail maker bundle when you
spend four hundred dollars or more so, if the cocktail
lover in your life has been good this year or
the right kind of bad them, Bartisian, at the push
of a button, make Bark quality Cosmopolitans, Martini's, Manhattans and more,
all in just thirty seconds, all for a one hundred off.

(15:11):
Amazing toys an't just for kids. Get a one hundred
off of cocktail maker. When you spend four hundred through
cyber Monday, visit botisian dot com slash cocktail. That's par
t e s i a n dot com slash cocktail.

Speaker 3 (15:27):
So what we're gonna suggest here for many people is
look at restricting your access to your credit. So what
we would suggest is you consider putting a credit freeze
on your credit. And what that does is a credit
freeze stops identity thieves from opening accounts in your name.

(15:47):
It doesn't affect your ability to use existing credit cards,
so whatever you have will totally be fine, but it
requires lifting the freeze when applying for new credits. So
let's say my credit is frozen, I decide I'm going
to go buy a car. They run my credit, they're
showing a block on it. I'm like, oh yeah, I
have to unfreeze my credit for them to see my credit.

(16:09):
But what it stops people from doing is opening up
accounts in your name unbeknownst to you. And that is
the rude rude awakening when you find out someone's tried
to take a mortgage out in your name, or they've
tried to take out multiple credit lines, which is not
going to be easy for you to fix. So you
can freeze or unfreeze your credit. It's fairly simple and

(16:32):
it's actually free. You can do that through the three
major credit reporting agencies. You can go to Equifax, Experience,
and TransUnion. You can go individually to them. You can
do it online, or you could also call them on
the phone. Now they of course they of course have
situations where they will sell you a membership. You don't

(16:52):
even need to do that. You can actually do it
for free at each of those locations. So, with regards
to identity theft prevention, some key steps to include believe
it or not. Protect your Social Security number. If people
have your social your date of birth, and your name,
they can do a lot of damage with that, so

(17:13):
you need to keep that number secure. Use the strong
pass for passwords that CJ was talking about with multi
factor authentication. Regularly review your credit reports. Again, if you
freeze your credit, that's a great thing. Or if you
don't freeze your credit, you should at least be taking
advantage of checking your credit annually. You can go to

(17:35):
annualcreditreport dot com. You can actually download your credit reports
for free. And make sure there's no accounts on there
that you don't recognize. Again, freezing your credit. The next
one is shredding sensitive documents and limiting. So let's start
with that shredding sensitive documents. A lot of people still
have paper coming into their household with statements. We would

(17:58):
recommend once you see that shreddit, if you need another
copy of it, you can reach out to, you know,
the institution that that that came in from. But there's
so much sensitive information on documents you might receive in
your house. Limit what you share on social media. A
lot of people like to play those games. It says
what's your favorite color or what's your where'd you go

(18:20):
to high school? All this will believe me, all the
information is being taken in by people that you don't
want to have taken it in and they could use
it against you. And then identity protection services we'll talk
about this in a minute. There's LifeLock and there's considerations
there if you should or should not use it. You
can also go to credit Karma credit karma dot com

(18:42):
again another free service. They will try to, you know,
sign you up for other things, but it's actually a
free service where you can monitor the credit usage on
a daily basis. So we just want you to you know,
while you maybe can't prevent identity theft, maybe you can
low to down if you're more aware.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
Talking this morning with Malia Quavis and CD Costs, they
are our retirement planning professionals from COSS Financial. Some fantastic
tools and some great things to be aware of provided
by our friends at COSS Financial. Don't forget if you
missed any part in today's program, you could always listen
back online Coss Financial dot com. That's COSS k l
Aasfinancial dot com. They're a tough number for the office

(19:23):
right here in Madison. Six oh eight four four two
five six three seven. No charge for that initial get
to know your appointment at Loss Financial. It will be
complimentary to you again their number six oh eight four
four two five six three seven. Into our conversation with
CJ and Malia, we'll talk more with them about protecting
your credit and some other options out there when it
comes to monitoring your credit. We'll get those details next

(19:44):
as Money in Motion with Coss Financial continues right here
on thirteen ten. L Wuiba talking with our retirement planning
professionals CJ COSS and Malia Quavis. Of course they come
to us from COSS Financial. I hope you've had a
chance to check out the website. If not, head on
over cossfinancial dot com. That's Claus k l A A
S Financial dot com. And they're telephon number for the

(20:04):
office right here in Madison six o eight four four
two five six three seven. No charge for that initial
get to know you appointment tech Loss Financial. It will
be complementary to you again the number six oh eight
four four two five six three seven. Talking this week,
of course, with the holidays, a lot of us taking
out that credit card and spending, and of course sometimes
you get those those bills at the end of the month.

(20:25):
You're kind of going through and trying to see, hey,
what's going on there. We're talking about preventing and protecting
yourself when it comes to things like fraud and those areas,
and had some great, great information just before the break
about some of the tools out there that you can use.
And so what if you say, you know, you want
to monitor your own credit CJ, are there some options
out there for folks.

Speaker 4 (20:44):
Yeah, So Malia kind of hinted at some of this,
but I'm going to dig into it a little bit deeper.
So there are companies out there like LifeLock and Malliah
mentioned credit Karma and different services, but there's some there's
some great resources available, and we would we point you
to a couple that are free tools for now. One
would be Annual Credit Report dot Com offers free yearly

(21:07):
credit reports, and then credit Karma dot Com provides daily
monitoring and actually credit report services. I think the only
difference there is I think Credit Karma's is not technically
your credit score. It's more of a credit it's a
credit like estimate. But you know, I'll hold up my
hand I use credit karma dot Com. They will actually

(21:27):
send me an email if my social Security number or
data birth are ever used to open up credit anywhere.
And I've tested this by the way, I've opened up
a new credit card and literally immediately while the credit
card was being opened up, I got an email and
a notice from credit Karma saying, you know, alert Alert.
So there's some really cool tools there. But Malia just

(21:47):
mentioned previously, we would be a big fan of actually
freezing your credit if you don't need your credit.

Speaker 5 (21:54):
Black Friday is coming, and for the adults, in your life.
Who love the coolest toys, Well there's something with them
this year too. Bartisian is the premiere craft cocktail maker
that automatically makes more than sixty seasonal and classic cocktails
each and under thirty seconds at the push of a button.
And right now, Bartisian is having a huge sight wide sale.

(22:14):
You can get one hundred dollars off any cocktail maker
or cocktail maker bundle when you spend four hundred dollars
or more. So, if the cocktail lover in your life
has been good this year or the right kind of bad,
get them Bartisian at the push of a button, make
bar quality Cosmopolitans, Martini's, Manhattan's, and more, all in just

(22:35):
thirty seconds, all for a hundred off. Amazing toys aren't
just for kids. Get one hundred off a cocktail maker
when you spend four hundred through Cyber Monday, visit Bartsian
dot com slash cocktail that's b A R T s
i a n dot com slash cocktail open.

Speaker 4 (22:55):
Just shut her down right and you go, you know what,
but it's gonna hurt my ability to use my credit card. No, no, no, no, no.
Anything that's currently open you can continue to use, but
if you just want to freeze your credit, then nobody
can use your data birth a soci security number to
open anything up, which is a great option that exists
out there. But kind of changing changing focuses here, we

(23:16):
would also really suggest that you'd be alert to phishing
and spoofing in your emails. My goodness, gracious, I personally
am just flabbergasted by how much of an increase there
has been in this regard in the last i'll call
it two years.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
So.

Speaker 4 (23:33):
Phishing is a type of online scam where a cyber
criminal sends a fraudulent communication that appears to come from
a legitimate source. The goal of phishing is to trick
the victim into providing sensitive information such as passwords, bank
account numbers, or credit card details. Here would be an example, Hey,
your Microsoft Office three sixty five log in isn't work.

(24:00):
Just click here and reconnect your online Office three sixty five, right,
And it's got kind of like a Microsoft logo on
it and comes in an email and you just go, oh, oh, okay,
well I have a Microsoft Office three sixty five. Just
click and I'll just re enter my username and password.
The problem is you're not going to the right site.

(24:20):
That's a phishing scam. Often you're not going to the
right website. You're clicking on the hyper link that takes
you to a spoofing site that you then enter use
and name and password. They've now got access to your
office three sixty five license. So phishing attacks can be
carried out through email or text messages. The attacker may
pretend to be from a very well known company, such

(24:42):
as a bank, internet service provider, or mortgage company. The
message may create a sense of urgency, such as like
threatening account suspension or job loss or money loss. And
the attacker may also include a link to a malicious
website that contains malware. So I'll again using me as
a simple example of this, I probably get two of

(25:04):
these a week, no joke. Between text and email. I
get two of these a week, and often it contains
the urgency. I get voicemails with literally human beings who
are leaving voicemails saying we've been trying to get a
hold of you, and since we're not getting a hold
of you, we are shutting down your bank accounts. Now
you need to call us back. Like it's crazy y'all.

(25:26):
So you just really need to be careful. And then
spoofing is a cybercrime where a person or entity impersonates
a legitimate source to gain access to a personal information, money,
or data. So spoofing can take many forms, such as,
let's say that you just throw away a letter in
your trash from your bank, right, just a statement you

(25:49):
throw it away, and somebody sees that CJ. Closs has
a bank account at I don't know, I'm going to
use a gimmicky one xyz bank. They can just send
me an email saying I am the manager from XYZ
Bank and you've lost your using name and password needs
to be reset. Click here and enter. You're just re enter.

(26:09):
You're using M and password for XYZ Bank. Do you
realize how easy that is? So anyway you can you can.
I need to call myself down. You can sense my
urgency here. It is really stuff that you need to
be careful about.

Speaker 2 (26:22):
Talk this morning with CJ. Closs and Malia Quavis. They
are our retirement planning professionals from Class Financial really important information.
Obviously you hear the passion when CJ talks about this stuff,
and Malia as well. You'll learn more about Class Financial.
Their website coss Financial dot com. That's k l a
As Financial dot com. And they're telephone number six so
eight four four two five six three seven. And email

(26:42):
spoofing isn't the only type of spoofing out there is
their CJ that's.

Speaker 4 (26:46):
Right, Sean, So I mentioned, you know, spoofing there. There
there's email spoofing, which which we have had crazy enough
inside of our own organization. Spoofing of our CEO sent
to all of our By the way, our CEO is Malia, right,
So a spoofing of Malia sent to our employees saying
payroll needs information from you. I mean it's crazy, right.

(27:11):
Caller ID spoofing, so this is a scammer changes their
phone number and caller ID name to appear as if
they're calling from a local number or a trusted company
or a government agency. And then text message spoofing, which
is also known as smishing. This is when a text
message appears to be from a legitimate source. So you
get the idea, everybody, man, these are getting creative. We

(27:33):
would just say to you you're gonna have to risk
not responding to a legitimate source by you know, in
terms of protecting your own credit in your own situation.
So we would we would prefer that a family member
ends up calling you going why did you not respond
to my text message? Then to end up in a
situation where you have months and months and months of

(27:55):
having to recover your credit.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
I know it's a serious thing, but for some reason,
the words smashing always doesn't for some reason, but this
stuff is very very serious, it's very very important. As
we talk about some of the warnings, I've known computer
experts who have gotten gotten unfortunately had had their their
accounts compromise. Because this stuff is very convincing as ce
Jmilie are talking this morning. Definitely, be very very careful,

(28:20):
very very cautious. If you missed any part of today's show,
or you want to share today's program with family members,
please do that. Head on over to classfinancial dot com.
That's closs k l aa S financial dot com. You
can listen and subscribe to the podcast right there online.
Tell for what number six oh eight four four two
five six three seven. Don't forget no charge for that
initial gets to know you appointment Tech Loss Financial. It
will be complimentary to you again their number six oh

(28:42):
eight four four two five six three seven, talking about
some of the modern takes on h on trying to
take advantage of folks when it comes to their credit,
also some old fashioned ways. We'll get some details on that.
We do the Class Quiz question ly week next as
Money in Motion continues right here on thirteen ten, wibi

(29:03):
As has Money in Motion with Coss Financial, as mentioned
the website class financial dot com. That's Coss k Laasfinancial
dot com. They're telephone umber six so eight four four
two five six three seven. It's a great time a year. Ah,
who doesn't love this time a year? Problem is, you
can sometimes be put in a compromising situation when it
comes to fraud and your credit and your financial information,

(29:24):
very very important stuff. As we talked this morning with
CJ and Malia from Class Financial, and we were talking
about some of the more high tech stuff things like
emails and spoofing caller ID, there are some low tech
ways as well that folks are are being victimized and
things like mailbox mailbox fraud. That is something that really

(29:46):
goes on. What can folks do, Malia to protect themselves there?

Speaker 3 (29:50):
Yeah, so I know people feel sometimes safer kind of
old school I put in a mailbox. I just feel
better about that, paying my bills that way than doing
on I totally understand that, but quite honestly, criminals target
mailboxes to steal sensitive information like checks and credit card
offers or bills. So number one, if you get credit

(30:14):
card offers in the mail, which I'm pretty sure everyone does,
shred those. Don't just throw them back in the trash.
Shred those, or as my client the other day said,
I just burn everything that comes through the door. It's like, okay, burn.
But a few simple steps to help you out with
regards to your mailbox. Never never, never leave mail sitting
in your box for too long. If you're heading out

(30:36):
of town, put a hold on your mail through USPS USPS,
or ask a trusted neighbor to pick it up before you. Second,
consider switching to a locking mailbox for extra protection, or
even use a PO box for important mail. So, as
I said, shred sensitive documents. And then finally consider we're
a big proponent of this, Finally consider receiving all your

(30:59):
financial statements online versus in the mail. This really really
has cut down I believe a lot of that mailbox
fraud by people who have switched to an electronic intake
of their sensitive financial information. A couple more things I
want to add here too for you, is back to

(31:21):
talking about checking on your credit card statements. You really
need to be doing this quite frequently, at least monthly,
because I know what happens sometimes again during the holidays
is we kind of kind of glance, but we don't
really pay attention. And there is a time limit for
you to be able to argue charges that are on
credit cards. So if you see a charge you do

(31:43):
not recognize, it's best to notify your credit card company
within that first thirty days. And then finally, you know,
we're talking about this phishing FYI that spelled pH not
FI for all of you fishermen out there. Phishing is
with a pH. But you want to be careful about
anything you click on. If you get a text and

(32:06):
you click on. I just had a client unfortunately do this.
They clicked on a text. It gave them a phone number,
as supposedly was from Apple. They called the phone number,
and they had just gotten a new computer. They called
the phone number. They unfortunately gave out personal identifiable information
and the fraudster And this happened two weeks ago the

(32:26):
fraudster took out twenty thousand dollars direct from their bank account,
and so of course the person feels horrible that they
gave all this information out. But I'll tell you age,
you know, it doesn't matter what age you are. A
simple click, a simple phone call to what you believe
is a legitimate source that was not recoverable money and

(32:48):
it was the client's fault. But I'm just telling you
that's why CEJ and I are like, please please control
what you have because someone out there is trying to,
you know, take it from you.

Speaker 2 (32:58):
Be very very careful. Really great information this week, as
always from our retirement planning professionals from Class Financial, CJ.
Colss and Malia Quavis. You can learn more about Class
Financial their website Cossfinancial dot com. That's Coss k l
A A S Financial dot Com. Telephone number six oh
eight four four two five six three seven. No charge
for that initial gets to know the appointment tech Coss Financial.

(33:19):
It will be complimentary to you again their number six
oh eight four four two five six three seven. You're
also going to hold on too that telephone number because
it's time now for the Class Quiz question. The week
it works like this and just a moment to ask
you the class quiz question the week. We'll then have
thirty minutes from the today's program to call the Class
Financial office right here in Madison at six oh eight
four four two five six three seven First cost. Correct
answer when this week's prize for say twenty five dollars

(33:41):
gift card to best Buy. This week's class quiz question
the week is this It's true or false? True or false.
Putting a credit freeze on your account prevents identity thieves
from opening accounts in your name. Telephone number six oh
eight four four two five six three seven first Coart
correct answer when the twenty five dollars gift card to
best Buy. And again that's Class Fiveinancial's office right here
in Madison. No charge that Ancial gets know you. Apployment

(34:04):
dech Class Financial. It will be complimentary to you again
their number six O eight four four two five six
three seven CJ. Malia. It's always great chatting with you guys.
Have a fantastic couple of weeks. Of course, next week
is Thanksgiving. You guys, enjoy time with your family and
look forward to doing it all again real soon. Thanks Jay,
Sean see you guys, Doctor Marty Greer comes your way
next here on thirteen ten Wiba