By Dr. David Eifrig in Retirement Millionaire:

Don't worry about identity theft. A recent New York Times article points out that services claiming to help with identity theft are hype. I agree. You don't need to spend hundreds of dollars a year to protect yourself. In fact, Oklahoma and New York City are suing one company, LifeLock, for deceptive business practices and fraudulent advertising. It turns out the odds of anything happening are low, less than 4% of people in a year. In most cases, they are minor events... like a stolen credit-card number. That's certainly a nuisance, but if you report the fraud, your credit-card company usually takes care of the lost money - unless you notice it too late (like months later).

Also, the majority of ID theft happens by stolen paper documents - in other words, old-school theft. Be careful of people, like in-home caretakers, who know their way around your house. Believe it or not, it's actually safer to go electronic by signing up for paperless billing and bank statements when offered.

What do I do? I regularly (at least monthly) look at my accounts online to catch anything early. And I keep my passwords "long and strong." A strong password has a combination of numbers, letters, and symbols (the characters above the numbers on your keyboard) that are nearly random. Using the name of your dog, your house number, and an exclamation point makes a weak password (Frankie605!)... These are all things easily figured out by a troublemaker.

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