Recently an elderly woman in Homer reported a theft of her passport, identity theft, and a false tax return was filed in her name highlighting identity theft in Alaska.
Michelle Tabler with the Better Business Bureau said it is important for people to pay attention to how they handle papers containing important personal information especially when disposing of them.
Tabler: “You should be shredding any documents that have personal information, old tax returns, credit card statements, old bills, cell phone stuff, we don’t want people to just throw it away because a majority of stolen identity is still occurring by physical means, not just online so we want people to shred.”
She also said that it is best to take outgoing mail to the post office versus an unsecured mailbox where a little red flag can indicate when signatures and checks are present.