Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Starcares, a weekly program that delves into the
issues that impact you and your family. This program is
the public affairs feature of this radio station. Now here's
your host, Michael Leach.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
The Internet is a scammer's best friend, especially during tax season.
The biggest scam is when someone files a fraudulent tax
return in your name, using your Social Security number and
pockets your tax refund. Let's talk about it. Joining me
today is Paul Auster. He's the founder and CEO of
Better Qualified. Paul, Thank you for joining me today and
welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Thanks for having me back on.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
This time of year can be especially dangerous for increases
in identity theft.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Why is that Unfortunately, tax fraud is one of the
fastest growing segments of identity theft and during this time,
when people are under pressure to get their returns in,
they might fall victim to some of the scams that
are currently being operated by these identity thieves. And people
need to understand that these are not low level crooks
(01:00):
dumpster divers. These are very highly intelligent, highly sophisticated crime
syndicates that are perpetrating these crimes. So this has happened
to many many people every single day, and it happens
to smart, intelligent people, but they fall victim again because
(01:20):
life is happening and it's coming at you fast. You know,
you might get a phone call from a quote unquote
agent from the IRS. The very first thing that everybody
has to understand is the IRS never calls consumers. Never ever,
ever will the IRS ever make an outbound phone call
to consumers. They also don't send text messages, so smishing
(01:41):
SMS text messaging for the purposes of identity theft is
also on the rise. But there are websites, fake websites
that look like you're on the IRS that would offer
to file your tax returns for free. And the problem
with identity theft regarding taxes is that you literally give
them all of the information needed to assume your ID
(02:04):
in minutes. So we have to be very, very careful.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
So when we're talking about tax season, we're not just
talking about April, right, because you get your statements at
the end of January and you can extend through October.
So it's really a long period of time, right it is.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
But the problem is when it's getting closer and closer
to the deadline, there are people that literally procrastinate and
they put more and more pressure on themselves, so that
is when they're more vulnerable to make a mistake.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Talk to us about phishing.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
So phishing is the term that we use for emails
that are sent for the purposes of identity theft. They
look like they're coming from your bank. Might be your
bank says that they need some further information to send
the tax documents to the IRS for your tax returns.
So the emails look very legitimate, but could be coming
(02:53):
from one of these scammers. So if you get a
text message, just don't answer it. If you get the
phone call, just hang up an email that you're not
sure if it's from the legitimate bank or company that
you're dealing with, Just simply take a deep breath and
make a phone call that you have on record. Don't
call the number that's in the email, don't click on
(03:14):
any links, but call the number that you have on
file and that will help.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
The IRS actually recommends that we obtain a PIN number
to help with this identity fraud. How can we obtain
the pin?
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Yeah, So that's a great point. So the two things
that all consumers have to do if you go to
IRS dot gov. There is a step by step guide
on how to do that. One of the things that
all consumers should do is create your online portal with
the IRS. Even if you use a CPA or a
tax preparer, consumers need to do this immediately because if
(03:50):
you don't do it, the identity thieves will create your
file for you, and that's what makes it very, very
easy for them to file these fraudulent tax turns. The
identity protection PIN prevents and mitigates the risk of someone
finding a return in your name almost by one hundred percent,
because if you create a PIN, it puts a flag
(04:12):
on your Social Security number for your returns. The IRS
will not process a return unless the PIN that was
created is included in the return information. So that's a
really really sound way to prevent, again almost one hundred
percent eliminate the risk of fraudulent tax returns.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
So somebody saying, Paul, really you want us to go
online and put more of our information online. Isn't that
part of the how we're getting ourselves into this situation
in the first place, all of this online activity.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
It is certainly a catch twenty two and a great
point I talk about that when people ask me about
password managers. We preach every day you need to vary
your passwords. For every single account, you should have a
different password. It's almost impossible to keep track of them.
They're asked on a regular basis to update your passwords
(05:05):
and your pass phrases, I really should say, and your pins.
So using a password manager will help you do that.
But people say, Paul, isn't there a risk that an
identity thief will gain access to the password manager and
then have all of my passwords instantly. Of course that
is a risk, and it's a real risk, but you
(05:25):
have to understand, first of all, make sure when you're
using a password manager that it's not a company or
a link you found on social media. Right, So you
need to use credible password managers. Big name companies like
Norton and McAfee, they go through extraordinary lengths to make
sure that those password managers are protected. So there is
(05:49):
a risk that that could happen. But using the same
password for all of your accounts is like the easiest
way for these thieves to gain access into all of
your accounts very very easily. So the risk of doing
something online to help protect your data is far outweighed
by not doing it. The irs is actually spent some
(06:12):
money upgrading their accounts and making sure that their sites
are secure. So if you don't create your online portal,
the identity thieves will do it for you, and by
the time you find out that they've opened the portal
in your name and file the fraudulent tax return, it
becomes very very difficult. People spend twelve to twenty four months,
(06:32):
one to two years trying to undo the mess that
was caused by the identity theft in the first place.
So it's well worth our time and our effort to
just go the extra step, because Michael, this is what happens. Technologies.
These softwares are jiggling at the rate of like a
million passwords a minute. So if you use the same
(06:53):
password that was given to you when you open an account,
unfortunately very common for people not to change the initial
pass it's also very easy for the identity thieves to
steal that password, and those are the ones that they're
going to exploit very very quickly.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
And so when getting the identity protection PIN from the
Internal Revenue Service, if you use a professional to handle
your taxes, you just have to make sure when they
file on your behalf, You just have to make sure
you give them the pin.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
That's right, A trusted CPA tax preparer will need that
pin to file the return on your behalf. And again
there could be a risk there, obviously, if you're already
giving all of your very very sensitive data and information
to this CPA or prepare that you.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Trust them absolutely. How is it that all of our
personal information is turning up in the hands of all
these companies anyway? What industries are the major culprits of
turning over our information or allowing access to our information.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
All of our information is literally in thousands and thousands
of databases that are securely and unsecured sites. There are
soft targets that have been identified. Unfortunately, the education system,
whether it's now high school, college, any postgraduate degrees. Hospitals
are soft targets. They don't think about the fact that
(08:10):
the data that they have can be used for the
purposes of identity theft. It used to be that your
patient number was your social security number. Now most doctors
and hospitals have stopped that practice punintended, but many of
them are still using social security numbers as a way
to identify the patient. If you're asked to provide your
(08:31):
social Security number in a situation that it's not needed,
then just simply decline and say I don't wish to
provide my social Security number, or certainly not the full number.
We need to protect ourselves. The government's not going to
do it for us. The banks, insurance companies, they try
to do it, but the reality is this really falls
(08:52):
on our laps, and we have, unfortunately, consumers, have sacrificed
a tremendous amount of our data security, our information security,
for the purposes of convenience. Best example that I can give,
and we're all guilty of this. When you download a
new app or program on your phone or computer, it
(09:14):
says click here to say that you've read the terms
and additions. Nobody reads the terms and conditions, but maybe
you're giving that app some access to data that they
shouldn't have. It might be your location, but it might
be access to other apps on your phone which could
have sensitive data. When we're opening a new account or
(09:36):
a banking app on our phones and computers and we
create our new beautiful pin or passphrase, a little message
is going to pop up and say, hey, Paul, would
you like us to remember your password, and what do
we do. We say, yes, that way, I don't have
to remember it. The problem with that is if they
gain access to your phone or computer malware viruses. Once
(09:59):
they're in there, they don't have to worry about passwords
because you've set it up that those apps automatically open.
Identity theft has been and is going to continue to
be the fastest growing crime in the world, and we're
somewhat responsible for this.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Let's turn now and talk about our responsibility as consumers
to protect our credit and how we can do that.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Well. The first thing is that you have to know
what's on your credit report. One of the good hangovers
and leftovers from the pandemic is that consumers now have
access to their credit reports at annualcreditreport dot com. That's
Annualcreditreport dot com. You can check your credit reports weekly. Now,
I don't suggest it or advise that you should be
(10:44):
checking your reports every single week. It won't hurt. These
are not hard inquiries, by the way, So as a consumer,
you can check your consumer report every day if you
want it to, but you don't have to. But I
would suggest that we do it on a regular monthly basis,
and one of the things that you should be looking
for are red flags of identity theft. One of the
first red flags that you would see is an address
(11:07):
that you do not recognize. The reason that that is
an immediate red flag is that one of the first
things identity thieves do is that they will create an
address that's associated with your Social Security number. And they
do that because when they're successful at opening up a
new account, they want the documents sent to their address,
(11:28):
not your address. And the reason they do that is
the longer that they can leave that account open and active,
the more damage that they can do. So if you
see an address that's on your report that you don't recognize,
you need to be very proactive. Contact the credit bureaus
and say, please remove delete this address. It does not
belong to me.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
If we have bad credit, how can we boost that
bad credit? We have good credit, how can we make
it better.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
The credit score, the FYCO scoring model, by the way,
is the scoring model that's used in about ninety nine
percent of underwriting, is another score. They're trying to implement
a second score. It's called the vantage score, and that
scoring model is actually created by the credit bureaus themselves.
Right now, we're stuck with the FYCO scoring model. The
FYCO scoring model is not in any way, shape or
(12:15):
form based on your income, so nobody knows how much
money you make at the FCO scoring model. What they
do know is are you paying your bills on time?
Payment history is the most important factor when it comes
to your credit scores. The second most important factor is
called our utilization ratio. They don't know what your income is,
but what they do know is how much credit you
(12:37):
have available and how much credit you're using. So the
magic number here the target is thirty percent or less.
So when you think about your credit cards, it's both
cumulative and individual accounts. So they'll take all of your open,
active credit cards, add up all of those credit limits.
You never want your balances to be above thirty percent
(12:58):
of the credit limits. If you have one thousand dollars
of available credit on a couple of different cards, you
would never want your balances to be above three hundred bucks.
So it's both cumuintive all your cards together, and it's
individual cards. A big mistake consumers make is they go
over their credit limit. You max out your cards and
(13:19):
you go over the credit limit by one dollar, you
could easily lose fifty points off of your credit score.
So pay down your balances, work on paying off your
credit card debt. We're all watching the craziness and the
stock markets and the economy and these tariffs. We can't
control that. What we can control is our credit card debt.
And the greatest investment that any consumer can make is
(13:42):
with themselves. If you think about it, most people are
now paying twenty percent or higher on their credit cards.
Some people are up close to thirty percent. Every dollar
that you decrease your credit cards, it's like getting a
thirty percent return on that investment. It's not as complicated
as people think, but you have to be disciplined and
(14:02):
you have to have a plan in place to do it.
If you cut expenses by one hundred bucks a month,
put it towards one card. You're also going to make
what's called micropayments. So you have one hundred bucks that
you're going to apply towards your credit card debt every month.
It will save you a ton of money in interest
if you split that into a minimum of two payments.
(14:24):
So you make a fifty dollars payment today and you
make a fifty dollars payment at the end of the month,
same hundred bucks. But you're gonna save yourself a tremendous
amount on interest payments when you make micro payments.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
How can we learn more about what we've talked about today?
How can people get in touch with you for their help?
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Sure we have all sorts of you know, do it
yourself guides and step by step things that people can
learn at better qualified dot com. That's better qualified dot.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Com, Better qualified dot Com. Thank you so much, Paul
Ouster for sharing with us today.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Thanks for having me back on Michael, and thank.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
You for listening. Want you join me again. I'm your host,
Michael Leachon. I am praying that the rest of your
day is wonderful.