Do you have an account with Macy’s that’s been inactive a few years?

Your personal information may be at risk though Citi says “no”.

Just be on the lookout for this new card.

It’s coming your way.

From CNN Money

Citi is issuing approximately 3.5 million credit cards to department store customers who did not request them, the banking company confirmed Friday.

Macy’s selected a portion of its card members who have had inactive accounts for more than two years to receive the new Citi MasterCards, according to Citi spokesman Samuel Wang.

According to news reports, consumer groups had raised concerns about the move, saying it could put customers’ personal information at risk either in the account-creation process or because the customers, not knowing they were being sent a new card, would not know if it had been stolen in transit.

One reason people wind up in credit trouble is because they are victimized by scams that take their money. Then they get dangerously behind on their legitimate bills.

This website offers simple quizzes to help you understand threats to your credit from scammers.

You can find the quizzes here at FakeChecks.org

Learn how to protect your credit rating and bank account from

*Work at home scams

*Foreign Business scams

*Lottery and sweepstakes scams

*Rental schemes

*Online “Love” swindlers

What’s disturbing is that you can watch online video of fraud victim interviews!

A great resource.

Software that allows computers to be cracked and identities to be stolen are being sold on Ebay according to the Telegraph.

PC Tools has discovered that users can also buy DVDs loaded with hacking programmes. These include trojans, a type of virus that lets hackers obtain passwords by logging keystrokes.

The virus is presented to its receiver as an apparent gift, often an email which masquerades as an image or joke.

Mike Greene, the vice-president of product strategy at PC Tools, urged people to watch for fake emails in inboxes.

“Everyone is quick to point the finger at China and Russia when it comes to websites selling spyware and hacking kits but what about eBay?

Here are some tips about Identity Theft - How To Prevent it

Tip#1 on Identity Theft - How To Prevent It : Educate Yourself. Start with this page from the Federal Trade Commission about how Identity Thieves work. Some of their most common techniques are…

Skilled identity thieves may use a variety of methods to get hold of your information, including:

1. Dumpster Diving. They rummage through trash looking for bills or other paper with your personal information on it.
2. Skimming. They steal credit/debit card numbers by using a special storage device when processing your card.
3. Phishing. They pretend to be financial institutions or companies and send spam or pop-up messages to get you to reveal your personal information.
4. Changing Your Address. They divert your billing statements to another location by completing a change of address form.
5. Old-Fashioned Stealing. They steal wallets and purses; mail, including bank and credit card statements; pre-approved credit offers; and new checks or tax information. They steal personnel records, or bribe employees who have access.
6. Pretexting. They use false pretenses to obtain your personal information from financial institutions, telephone companies, and other sources.

Tip#2 on Identity Theft - How To Prevent It: Shred documents before disposing of them, even at home.

Tip#3 on Identity Theft - How To Prevent It: Beware Email From “Financial Institutions” Many if not most these days are fraudulent. Delete them from banks or credit cards you’ve never done business with. Especially prone to abuse are emails from Ebay, PayPal and other online merchants. If an email comes and you believe it to be correct, log in directly at the merchant’s site from your web browser. Do not click links from within potentially fraudulent emails.

Tip#4 on Identity Theft - How To Prevent: Beware Online Job Offers… These offers either seek your personal information to steal your identity or to lure you into helping steal money from others by offering you a 10% commission for “check cashing”. In the end you’ll be the loser either way. You can read more here.

Tip#5 on Identity Theft - How To Prevent: Protect, Change, and Increase the Complexity of your passwords. Changing passwords every 30 to 90 days is best if the password has a mix of numbers and letters. Simple passwords like mother’s maiden name or easily guessed ones don’t work well.

Tip#6 on Identity Theft - How To Prevent: Protect Your Flash Drive. I just bought an encrypted flash drive. You should too! It’s too easy to peer into your life - and your customer’s lives - with an unprotected flash drive. Hey, keep your eye on your laptop too and make sure it’s well protected by encryption.

You can find other tips on Identity Theft - How To Prevent It at this University of Maryland page.

Related Link: Identity Theft - How To Prevent…

Here’s information for people seeking information on the topic: “FICO Score Free”.

These are the links with information that seems to be most relevant to your search. Most of the ones we’ve found when searching for this term are news reports or pages trying to sell you stuff.  Selling things isn’t the problem, it’s that you have to buy something TO get that FICO Score Free.

These sites are most likely what you’re looking for.
1.  How To Estimate Your Fico Score Free at Bankrate.com  This is a calculator that estimates your FICO score based on your answers.  This tool which estimates your FICO Score Free does try to sell you something at the end, but it will give you your estimated FICO Score Free without a hassle! Of course once you estimate your FICO Score Free you really won’t know if it’s correct unless you check, but it might provide you some peace of mind in the meantime! (This assumes your identity hasn’t been stolen or that other erroneous information hasn’t been added to your credit file.)

2. Here is the legitimate site to order your Fico Score Free, AnnualCreditReport.com Other sites that claim to offer your Fico Score Free are trying to sell credit monitoring and other services, etc.

Sad to report but most of the rest of the search results for FICO Score Free were not as good as these two resources!

Here are some quick notes on how to fix your credit file. You can learn more by understanding the factors that go into creating your credit score.

Fix Credit File Tip #1: Realize you can’t fix your credit file by starting a NEW credit file. That could even be considered FRAUD.

Fix Credit File Tip #2 : Know your credit score(s). You can’t fix what you don’t know about!

Fix Credit File Tip #3: Pay off what you can as quickly as you can without incurring new debt.

Fix Credit File Tip #4: Diversify your debt between a healthy mix of different types of credit, installment loans, retail accounts, credit cards, and mortgage.

Fix Credit File Tip #5: Only apply  for new credit as part of an overall strategy so you don’t mess up your credit file. That goes back to being INFORMED!

Fix Credit File Tip #6: When you’ve done what you can and still don’t have the credit score you need because of problems with your credit file, get professional help to fix credit files!

Angel Food Ministries is one of the best ways to help people help themselves. We’re glad to report that out of 237,000 pages or lenses on Squidoo, this one has climbed to number 200 today!

Please visit it today! Save money! Help others save money! At Angel Food Ministries

Usually if credit repair is an issue… budgeting and savings are an issue too.

Here’s a great non profit service that helps families (and individuals) save money every month on their grocery bill.

It’s Angel Food Ministries.  We use it to save money monthly and tell all our friends about it… so now we’re telling YOU!

The number of bank repossessions jumped to 42,789 in August, compared with 20,116 a year earlier, the RealtyTrac said. In July, there were 26,842 bank repossessions.

Nevada, California and Florida had the highest foreclosure rates in the country last month, the firm said.

Nevada reported one foreclosure filing for every 165 households - more than three times the national average. The state had 6,197 filings in August, an increase of 21 percent from July and more than triple the year-ago figure.

California’s foreclosure rate was one filing for every 224 households. The state reported the most foreclosure filings of any single state with 57,875, up 48 percent from July and an increase of more than 300 percent from August 2006.

Florida had one foreclosure filing for every 243 households. In all, the state reported 33,932 foreclosure filings, up 77 percent from July’s total and more than twice the year-ago total.

Georgia, Ohio, Michigan, Arizona, Colorado, Texas and Indiana rounded out the 10 states with the highest foreclosure rates.

—

On the Net:

RealtyTrac Inc.: http://www.realtytrac.com

Though the article from the Northwest Montana “Daily Interlake” isn’t about reading credit scores, one of the people they interviewed told how they - as a conservative lender - used credit scores in the real life loan process:

Credit scores — based on a consumer’s loan repayments, credit card histories, bill histories, bankruptcy and other factors — range from 450 to 850. Those with 450 scores traditionally have been considered too risky for any loans, scores in the 500-600 range might have gotten high-interest loans, but reasonable-interest-rate loan money generally is reserved for those above 600 or 650.

How’s your credit score?