Deep-Six Fraud in 2012: A ProtectMyID Review for the New Year

ProtectMyID LogoWhat sort of year is 2012 shaping up to be as far as fraud and identity theft is concerned? All indications point toward its being as out of hand as 2011 was.

Identity theft is one of the world’s fastest growing crimes. This doesn’t come as big news. After all, headlines have been trumpeting this fact for years. What may surprise you is just how supremely insidious a crime it is. “Initially, identity theft is like being robbed without even knowing it!”, writes Ethan Pope in his 2006 book, “Identity Theft: Protecting Yourself from an Unprotected World.” “No one stuck a gun in your face and asked you to hand over your wallet. In fact, it’s possible you have been robbed every day for months and you still don’t even know it.”

Truly the stuff of nightmares, this creeping, silent, ongoing rip-off that is identity theft! You of course wish very much to avoid falling victim to such fraud. But may want to ask yourself how practical avoidance is, especially if you don’t carry identity theft protection. Times are tough; the economy’s still on its back. Every dollar you earn and save, every dime of credit extended to you, is as precious to you as your own life’s blood. If you seek value in identity theft protection, then you should give ProtectMyID a look.

Value with ProtectMyID begins with a thirty-day free trial. After the trial period, coverage costs $9.95 a month should you decide to continue doing business with the company. Should you decide to discontinue a relationship with ProtectMyID, you will not be charged for any service during the free trial period.

A cornerstone of ProtectMyID’s service is credit monitoring. Changes of address, new accounts, new inquiries, public records – all of these fall under ProtectMyID’s scrutiny. In the event that it detects signs of mischief, you receive an email alert informing you of the development. Yet even if no suspicious activity is detected, ProtectMyID will email you to let you know that all is well with your information and accounts. Like its competitors in the identity theft protection industry, ProtectMyID extends its vigilance to Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.

Any evidence of fraudulent activity prompts ProtectMyID to take action on your behalf by helping you to cancel any compromised debit and credit cards. ProtectMyID also informs the police and the credit bureaus of the fraud event, sets up fraud alerts, and freezes your credit report.

With such service comes a $1 million guarantee, which essentially functions as an insurance policy against the event that you incur any expenses consequent to nay identity theft you might fall victim to while subscribing to ProtectMyID.

A modest additional $6.95 buys you ChildSecure, ProtectMyID’s credit monitoring service for minors in your care. This alerts you to any funny business involving your child’s personal information.

At no additional cost to adults purchasing ProtectMyID is CardSafe, a service that registers your debit and credit cards in the event that it’s lost or stolen.

ProtectMyID stands committed to offering you excellent help and support. Friendly telephone and email assistance is available during the following weekday and weekend hours:

  • Monday through Friday, 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM;
  • Saturday and Sunday, 8 AM to 5 PM.

ProtectMyID’s website also features an extensive and useful FAQ section to help you to resolve quickly any issues that may arise.

The judgment’s in: ProtectMyID offers an impressive array of identity theft protection features. If you go with ProtectMyID, you might find yourself wishing to obtain credit reports from all three credit reporting agencies (a service ProtectMyID doesn’t offer), but otherwise you’ll no doubt be happy with the company’s product, especially if value is what you’re after.

Finding the Right Identity Theft Protection Service

Identity Theft ProtectionIt seems that more frequently than ever these days you read in headlines or on news crawls about some data breach that has exposed thousands, if not millions, of consumers at risk for identity theft. In the period of 2005-2008 some 220 million people’s private information was reported lost or stolen. In 2007 alone, somewhere between 8 and 15 million individuals residing in the United States had their identities boosted. You currently run about a 20 percent chance of falling victim to fraud involving identity theft.

The fraud that is identity theft has swept the global like a particularly virulent disease. And, as a consequence of the fact that most of the world is integrated into a market involving mobile capital of global reach, the identity fraud epidemic means tragedy for some and opportunity for others. Perhaps some of the biggest go-getters in this riotous new age of rampant identity theft are the very banks extending consumer credit. Having made this credit easy to obtain, these banks contributed significantly to the problem. Big profits are to be had in identity theft, and the world doesn’t lack for unscrupulous characters eager to partake of them. The culpable banks have responded, then, by offering their customers services designed to defend against identity theft.

Many nonbanking entities also have gotten into the business of selling identity theft protection. LifeLock, TrustedID, IDENTITY GUARD, ProtectMyID, Equifax – these are but a few names associated with this growing market. For subscriptions of varying amounts and terms, these companies monitor your credit reports for any suspicious activity. Should they detect any, they alert you and set about helping you recover from the crime.

Though these services will generally aid customers in recovering from identity fraud, they emphasize prevention and have designed various services around enhancing this protection. “If credit monitoring is a burglar alarm that goes off when someone steals your identity, a fraud alert is a deadbolt that prevents break-ins,” reports a 2008 PC World article. “LifeLock and TrustedID contact the bureaus and set the alert. Debix … provides its own contact number for lenders. When a creditor calls the number, Debix’s automated voice network calls your phone and lets you approve or deny the transaction by entering a PIN. Debix can call up to three numbers until it finds you.”

The particulars of how these alert work aside, it remains the case for most identity theft protection services, credit monitoring is simply one of several features on offer. Another typical feature is some sort of monetary guarantee. The usual amount is $1 million and is there to guarantee against losses consequent to any occurrence of identity theft.

Though this many-zeroed figure looks impressive, the fact is that wildly exceeds actual reported losses following an event of identity fraud. The PC World article reports that “the average out-of-pocket cost for identity theft victims in 2007 was $691, and the average loss for people who had false accounts opened in their names was $1066.” Still, it’s no doubt comforting for identity theft protection service customers to know that these companies are willing to dedicate significant money to repairing the damage identity fraud can cause to their credit and finances.

Credit monitoring, fraud alerts, million-dollar guarantees – these already seem a rich smorgasbord of services. But most identity theft protection companies feature the additional service of a credit freeze, which locks down your credit accounts in the event that you discover information of yours attached to these accounts has been compromised. “With a freeze … credit bureaus won’t release your report at all,” the PC World article reports. Yet it’s best that you make use of this service only as a last resort, because, as the article continues, “[e]ven with a freeze in place, identity thieves can use your medical insurance, ruin your eBay reputation, or apply for jobs with your name.”

The upshot is that, in the broad strokes, the various identity theft protection services resemble each other so closely as to be virtually indistinguishable. So, when shopping for a service, it’s smart to rely on reviews of these services, which help you to evaluate the various features on offer in such a way as to allow you to realize the best value for your money. As with so many things in life, the devil is in the details. If you don’t want fraud or identity theft to bedevil you and your family, do the necessary investigation to find out which identity theft protection service is right for you.

Avoiding a 2012 ID Theft Apocalypse: A Review of IDENTITY GUARD for the New Year

Identity Guard Identity Theft ProtectionIf you find yourself shopping for identity theft protection, you owe it to yourself to give IDENTITY GUARD® TOTAL PROTECTION® a look. IDENTITY GUARD® TOTAL PROTECTION® offers customers iron-clad protection along with a host of other useful services that allow you to secure your credit. IDENTITY GUARD® TOTAL PROTECTION® also features attractive services for desktop and laptop PCs, the Web, and mobile communication devices. These include a free Internet security suite, which only sweetens an already plentiful pot of identity theft protection services.

You live a modern life, which means you’re seemingly always on the run. IDENTITY GUARD® TOTAL PROTECTION® protects you wherever your responsilities take you with unbeatable combo of credit, Web, PC, and on-the-go coverage.

Though IDENTITY GUARD® TOTAL PROTECTION® does not issue fraud alerts for your account, the company does provide daily online monitoring in order to detect any mischief visited on your credit and finances. This monitoring extends to known sites on which stolen personal information (credit card and banking account numbers, Social Security numbers) is bought and sold, and to databases on which your personal information resides.

IDENTITY GUARD® TOTAL PROTECTION® doesn’t limit its coverage to the virtual realm; the material realm also falls within its purview. The company offers customers stolen or lost wallet recovery assistance, which with an easy phone call grants you access to emergency funds of up to $2,000.

Even if you manage to hold on to your wallet, you’ll be glad you have IDENTITY GUARD® TOTAL PROTECTION® on your side. Included in the company’s services is an Internet security suite that keeps safe your computer along with your sensitive personal information. Banking information, insurance policies, medical records, passwords and usernames – these among other items IDENTITY GUARD® TOTAL PROTECTION® protects with its MOBILE LOCKBOX® data storage service. MOBILE LOCKBOX® also features PC or mobile device accesss to current account threshold notifications, balances, fraud monitoring, and transactions.

IDENTITY GUARD® TOTAL PROTECTION® helps to protect the information you don’t place in MOBILE LOCKBOX® with PRIVACYPROTECT®, which offers the following features:

  • Keylogging protection that prevents fraudsters from remotely recording your computer keystrokes in order to capture passwords, usernames, and other sensitive information;
  • ID Vault secures and safeguards your online transactions by automatically signing you into your online accounts.

The vigilance of PRIVACYPROTECT® IDENTITY GUARD® TOTAL PROTECTION® couples with credit score monitoring with Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, the three major credit reporting agencies.

All these preventive services make it clear that IDENTITY GUARD® TOTAL PROTECTION® emphasizes protection over resolution. Should the unthinkable happen, however, and you find yourself a victim of identity theft, you can count on IDENTITY GUARD® TOTAL PROTECTION® to be there to help you. The company’s Identity Theft Assistance Center (ITAC) stands as a tremendous resource for guiding you through the steps toward recovery.

An added attraction is the $1 million identity theft insurance that the company makes available to their customers.

Service IDENTITY GUARD® TOTAL PROTECTION® takes seriously. The company’s customer service telephone hotline, though not available 24/7, does keep generous weekday and weekend hours.

In the final analysis, IDENTITY GUARD® TOTAL PROTECTION® offers real value and solid (if not completely stellar) identity theft protection. The company earns gold stars for customer support and its reputation. Though no company can guarantee 100 percent protection from identity theft, some offer stronger safeguards. IDENTITY GUARD® TOTAL PROTECTION® is a standout in this respect, offering one of the fullest complement of protection and recovery services in the industry.

Anti-Fraud Lang Syne: A TrustedID Review for the New Year

trustedid logoLike 2011, 2012 promises to be another banner year for fraud. Just as last year saw hacks of epic proportions – most notably last April’s Sony PlayStation Network security breach, which placed at risk for identity theft millions of subscribers – this young year has already born witness to a massive breach of its own. Online footwear vendor Zappos recently fell victim to malefactors unseen. A January 15, 2012 New York Observer article reports that “online shoe and clothing giant Zappos has suffered a massive security breach compromising some data on as many as 24 million customer accounts.”

This breach sent Zappos’ chief exec springing into action. “In an email to employees, CEO Tony Hsieh said the company was attacked by ‘a criminal who gained access to parts of our internal network and systems through one of our servers in Kentucky,’” the Observer article continues.

A rather inauspicious beginning to 2012 if you happen to be one of the shoe vending giants millions of customers. Indeed, e-commerce is an increasingly fraught process. You never know where the next attack will come from, and who it will target. If the events of the past year teaches you nothing else, it should impress upon you the idea that protecting your personal information is an extremely serious matter.

It’s fortunate, then, that a fine identity theft protection specialist stands by to help you in this matter. TrustedID, an identity theft protection industry, offers subscribers a solid combo of features designed to prevent, detect, and resolve incidences of identity theft.

Security TrustedID offers in spades: Lender DoubleCheckâ„¢ sends out fraud alerts on your behalf. Once this alert is sent, double-checked confirmation will be required for any credit is extended in your name.

Along with Lender DoubleCheck, TrustedID provides subscribers with eagle-eyed fraud monitoring, which includes online scanning of black markets, the “Darknet” and other zones of risk where personal information is bought and sold. Should your information turn up in the course of any these scans, TrustedID’s CreditLockâ„¢, which is available in all states at an extra cost, kicks in to freeze your credit. Once CreditLock is engaged, the three major credit reporting bureaus – Equifax, Experian, TransUnion – will honor requests for your credit report only after securing your permission.

Should the worst happen, you’ll be glad that you’ve secured TrustedID’s services. In the event that you experience ID theft, TrustedID assists you in resolving this issue and recovering your good name. TrustedID offers its subscribers a claims kit, which minutely describes the resolution process and offers advice on how to avoid future incidences. TrustedID also informs the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and other government agencies as the need arises.

But TrustedID’s recovery assistance doesn’t end with reports to agencies. Also offered to subscribers is a $1 million service guarantee, in which TrustedID pledges to reimburse you for costs and legal expenses incurred, or wages lost, as a consequence of any defect in the company’s product.

It’s not likely, however, that you’ll find any defect in the many handy additional features TrustedID provides its subscribers. These additional features include:

  • Mail-list removal;
  • A family plan;
  • Custom plans and services for companies.

Whether you find yourself using TrustedID’s services a lot or a little, help is always just a phone call or mouse-click away. Live phone support is available 12 hours daily. Support via email or the website’s FAQ page is available any time. And Trusted ID offers additional information on at its online resource center and identity-theft weblog.

It goes without saying that, when it comes to identity theft, protection begins at home. That’s why you can trust TrustedID to protect your name, Social Security number, telephone numbers, credit card numbers, and email and residential email addresses. All of this solid protection makes TrustedID a reliable service for 2012 and beyond. They provide solid all-round identity theft protection, which allows you to mount a robust defense of your finances, credit, and good name against any would-be fraudsters. With identity theft increasing in frequency with each passing year, it’s foolish to put off until 2013 what you should be doing right now – which is getting you and your family the kind of quality identity theft protection TrustedID has built its reputation on.

Only a Silly Goose Forgoes ID Theft Protection and Credit Monitoring

In the autumn of 1702, the Baron Waldmund Wildstein published his famous treatise on the Bi-color Gans. For six months he toiled in a small room in his large castle on the banks of the Danube. “The Bi-color Gans is one of nature’s greatest mysteries,” he wrote, “and I have set out to solve it.”

The baron did indeed manage to solve this mystery He discovered that the Bi-color Gans hailed from Egypt and only settled in the forests of Bohemia during the summer months. “This goose is of admirable size and boasts a wing span of almost three feet,” he observed. “It is said to feast on sand worms that wash up on the banks of the Nile during a waxing moon. It has a changeable disposition, and will sometimes eat bread offered it by passersby. Its beak is black as winter’s night, and its breast as white as snow. So loud and shrill is its call that it is said sometimes to break glass. On the winter solstice is it said to fly to the moon to mate with a dying star under the gaze of our Heavenly Creator.”

Baron Wildstein thought much of the Bi-color Gans throughout his life. He had neither wife nor child, and he supposedly longed for the company of no one. Even his kinsmen felt ill at ease in his presence, for he was ever talking about his strange and wonderful bird. His only confidant was a peddler that had passed through his district some twenty years ago. A small, foul-smelling man, he seemed to know much of the Bi-color Gans. Some said he came from the East, for he was dark-eyed and beetle-browed. Others claimed he had been at the court of King Hildebrand, the same Hildebrand who has burned the martyr Scoureas on All Pines Day. But the Baron himself said that this unfortunate man, whose name was Vigsund, was an emissary of the Gans itself. For he wore around his neck a silver chain from which a small, white feather hung. This, he said, was a feather plucked from the breast of the Gans.

The Baron was likely enamored, for the two men spent long nights in the Baron’s study, bent over cracked and fading papers illuminated only by the wan light of a tallow candle. Together they read aloud the Baron’s treatise, correcting mistakes and adding new tales. Vigsund said the blood of the Gans could impregnate a virgin and when the childless, cold-hearted Baron heard this his eyes were said to shine.

Much speculation surrounds the Baron’s great treatise, but it has survived some three hundred years, and has become a priceless addition to present-day zoological studies. Though much of what the Baron wrote has been disproved (the Gans’s blood cannot impregnate a virgin), he has given us vital information about this rare and mysterious bird. The Baron said the Gans weighed as much as thirty pounds, but today we know of specimens that are sixty pounds or more. He said it ate only the seeds of the golden Herzschmertz apple, but we now know it also takes it nutriment from a soft, white milk bread favored by the French. This diet of apple seeds and bread imparts to its flesh a delightful flavor – but the author of this work cannot attest to this.

Today the Bi-color Gans can been seen bathing on the banks of the Seine, having departed from the Danube. That river, some say, became foul-smelling and sluggish, and the Gans could no longer bathe in its waters without muddying itself. A more recent work has been written on this animal by an eminent Dutch professor, Huls Wegsterben. Wegsterben claims the Gans does not fly to the moon to reproduce, but rather burrows deep within the earth. There it fashions a large burrow and waits for a mate. The bird then gestates its eggs for six to seven weeks before returning to the surface. Wegsterben’s theory has been challenged by a Polish graduate student, Stanislaw Fickywitz, who posits that the Gans remains in its burrow until its goslings are large enough to fly. The question is still a matter of great debate today, and it seems unlikely that it will be answered any time soon.

The Bi-color Gans has much to teach us. It is rarely sighted nowadays, but much has been written about its habits. Perhaps one day we will learn the secret of its mysterious ways. Just a few days ago an American scholar, Professor Dit Cornflower, announced the presence of the Gans near the headwaters of the Mississippi River. This is a great discovery and implies that the Gans has finally crossed the Atlantic. The future of Bi-color Gans scholarship is promising, for much remains to be written about this elusive and wonderful bird.

One could say that the Bi-color Gans is as elusive and wonderful as an identity – all that makes you what you are. And certainly you don’t want your identity to fly the coop. So invest in identity theft protection or credit monitoring. Not only will you be buying peace of mind, you’ll also ensure you can devote your time to more interesting matters, like the eternal mystery of the Bi-color Gans.

Light a Fire Under Fraudsters with Effective ID Theft Protection and Credit Monitoring

fda myplateWhether you follow the new FDA “My Plate” nutrition guide or remain an adherent of that agency’s “Food Pyramid,” it’s safe to say that portions of flame do not appear on either. The government must presume, then, that fire is too nutritionally insignificant to recommend eating.

But try telling that to fire eaters, who make consuming flames not only a habit, but a livelihood as well. A common element in the performances of Indian fakirs, which was intended to demonstrate spiritual attainment, fire eating left the exotic East in the late nineteenth century for sideshows throughout Europe and the United States. Such a commonplace in these sideshows has fire eating become that it now functions as a sort of prerequisite accomplishment for circus aspirants.

The nineteenth century saw fire eating’s enshrinement as a fixture in circus sideshows, but the trick has been practiced here and there in the West for centuries. “The secret of fire-eating seems to have discovered about the year 1667,” reports an article in the first volume of The Literary Speculum. “There is an account in the “Journal des Scavans,” of one Richardson, and Englishman, who exhibited at Paris.”

Richardson’s feat “is … mentioned in Evelyn’s Diary.” The article then goes on to reproduce the relevant passage:

“Oct. 8,1672. – I took leave of my Lady Sunderland, who was going to Paris to my Lord, now ambassador there. She made m stay dinnerat Leicester House, and afterwards sent for Richardson, the famous fire-eater. He before us devoured brimstone on glowing coals, chewing and swallowing them. He melted a beere glasse, and eate it quite up; then taking a live coal on his tongue, he put on it a raw oyster; the coal was blown on with bellows till it flam’d and sparkl’d in his mouth, and so remain’d till the oyster gap’d and was quite boil’d; then he melted pitch and wax with sulphur, which he drank down as it flam’d. I saw it flaming in his mouth a good while, &c.”

The sight of a coal flaming in a man’s mouth a good while is sure to make the steadiest nerves quail. Fire eating is, however, not as a dangerous as it looks; many in the profession find themselves quite capable to ply their trade for years. “Other than sound fire safety precautions and some practical advice regarding the laws of physics (i.e., “hot air rises”), there are few secrets to eating fire,” observes the Wikipedia entry on the subject. “Torches do not burn with ‘cold flames’ nor is there any special substance in the performer’s mouth other than saliva.”

Beyond these few precautions and bits of advice opinions diverge. Some practitioners maintain it is an endurance contest that pits minds against matter, while others insists that, when performed properly, the fire eater need not be able to withstand injury. The first contingent claim that “the real ‘secret’ to fire eating is enduring pain” that comes from “constant blisters on your tongue, lips and throat.” The second contingent, on the other hand, argue that “a skilled fire eater should not burn themselves [sic].” Yet, as a consequence of the fact that fire eating remains a closely guarded secret, the particulars of how to execute the trick continues to be a mystery.

Suffice it to say that those who need to know do know. “Fire eating … is a skill usually passed on for a skilled master to an appropriate student and almost all teachings include instructions on first aid, fire safety, chemistry and other appropriate skills,” the Wikipedia entry reports.

Those profane who wish to penetrate the veil of mystery surrounding fire-eating may look to Henry Mayhew’s book, “London Labor and London Poor.” In it, a street-performing fire eater explains his art to the author. “For my performances I begin with eating the lighted link, an ordinary one as purchased at oil-shops,” Mayhew quotes him as saying.

There’s no trick in it, only confidence. It won’t burn you on the inside, but if the pitch falls on the outside, of course it will hurt you. If you hold your breath the moment the lighted piece is put in your mouth, the flame goes out on the instant. Then we squench the flame with spittle. As we take a bit of link in the mouth, we tucks sit on one side of the cheek, as a monkey do with nuts in his pouch. After I have eaten sufficient fire I take hold of the link, and extinguish the lot by putting the burning end in my mouth. Sometimes, when I makes a slip, and don’t put it in careful, it makes your moustache fiz up. I must also mind how I opens my mouth, ‘cos the tar sticks to the lip wherever it touches, and pains sadly. This sore on my hand is caused by the melted pitch dropping on my fingers, and the sores is liable to be bad for a week or eight days. I don’t spit out my bits of link; I always swallow them. I never did spit ‘em out, for they are very wholesome, and keeps you from having any sickness. Whilst I’m getting the next trick ready I chews them up and eats them. It tastes rather roughish, but not nasty when you’re accustomed to it. It’s only like having a mouthful of dust, and very wholesome.

Most folks reading these remarks made by Mayhew’s fire eater would probably be content to take him at his word that these burnt bits of link are “very wholesome.” One thing that’s not very wholesome at all is identity theft. A rapidly growing form of fraud, identity theft can burn up your finances, credit, and good name in no time at all, particularly in these days of computer-enhanced crime. Effective identity theft protection and credit monitoring are to fraudsters like errant drops of burning tar to the back of the hand – certain to pain them sadly when they find their machinations have been thwarted. With so much danger lurking in both cyber- and “meatspace,” why would you take your chances when it comes to ID theft? Take the appropriate action today, before some crook cleans you out, leaving you with nothing but coals out of which to make a hot meal.

Avoid a Financial Belly Flop: Dive into ID Theft Protection and Credit Monitoring

belly flopJordan Topover despised his belly.

It had been a year since he had gone under the knife for lap band surgery. The surgeon sliced open his belly, parted it like a deer carcass, deftly twisted a rubber band around his stomach, and then stitched him up again. It took all of two hours and when he awoke from the anesthesia, he felt like a stuffed Thanksgiving turkey. But the thought that his stomach was now the size of a baby’s fist brought him joy, and when his mother helped the nurse roll him into a wheelchair and then rolled him home, he felt like a man on the verge of a new life.

Despite the littleness of the pouch his stomach now was, Jordan’s appetite remained huge. He ate. And ate. Tapioca pudding and Raisinettes and butter pretzels all found their way into that pouch. He couldn’t understand how it could accommodate so much food. Sometimes he threw up, like the time he ate a quart butterscotch ice cream garnished with a half-quart of Cool Whip; but mostly what he ate settled comfortably in the pouch, there to stay for the remainder of the digestive process.

Jordan’s doctor had promised his belly would slowly shrink, deflating like a gas balloon. It didn’t. At night, as he lay in bed, it rose before him, a gentle mound of white dotted with dark, curly hairs and the odd benign mole. He thought of the pouch buried beneath, the pouch that should have curtailed his appetite, that should have thwarted his desire to gorge. He imagined it had learned appetites of its own, that his own greediness had somehow modeled for it a new way of being. It had learned to expand of its own volition, making it a superfetation, a stomach of his stomach. The pleasures of the table infected it and it had grown to receive them. Never would the mound of fat above shrink; indeed, it was a protective rind, enveloping the pouch, protecting it so that it might expand in peace.

One comfort stayed his hand when he thought how easily he could end his life. (For life holds little joy for a fat man.) At the community pool, he made a real splash. There his belly was no lame protuberance, no fatty parasite on an otherwise healthy organism. There it was a vehicle for much amusement: He had perfected the art of the belly flop. Every Saturday he would go to display his talent at this arcade and often dangerous feat. He would heave his body up the ladder until he reached the highest diving board and would catapult his body, stomach down, above the water. His descent was at once clumsy and graceful. When his belly struck the surface, a slap fine and deep would resonate across the pool. Sunbathing men looked up from Reader’s Digests. Children left off frolicking to mark the cacophonic collision of flab and water. And women momentarily gazed from under heavily mascara-ed lashes at the resounding spectacle that was Jordan Topover.

These thoughts of glories past brought to Jordan’s mind a solution to present sorrows. The pouch would not shrink his belly. But it also made the belly flop an impossibility, for the incision through which it was introduced was red and raw. There remained to him only one solution: to destroy what failed to aid him in one final flop.

He headed off to the pool, resigned to a fate at once cruel and romantic. When he had hauled himself to the highest diving board, he looked down at the cool, blue water beneath. Only it could save him from the pouch within, the foreign body that was designed to heal but was determined to betray. As he flung his body into mid-air, he thought of how brief his glory had been. He thought of many things as he fell, how perhaps he never should have had the pouch, how he should have accepted his body as it was, how that great, white belly had, at times, brought him great pleasure. So lost was he in these thoughts that he never felt himself slap into the water’s surface, he never felt the sudden constriction of the pouch and then its explosion as walls of fat pushed in on it, making annihilation inevitable. As the men, women and children gathered round, they never suspected the drama that unfolded as the large boy fell from the sky, and they never suspected that Other, that secret sharer, which had grown slowly inside, the offspring of a medical intervention rash and dangerous, the brainchild of men too vain to consider that a creation designed to help might also seek the sweet pleasures of digestion unimpeded.

Jordan Topover died that day – and his pouch died, too. But had his relatives been less careful, it was possible that he could have lived on through an identity thief’s deceit. Every day the identities of the dead are stolen and used for nefarious purposes. Don’t let that happen to those closest to you. Encourage them to invest in reliable identity theft protection or credit monitoring. It will save them agony akin to that suffered by the tragic belly-flop champ.

Identity Theft Protection Keeps the Song of Yourself from Sounding Any Sour Notes

singingIt starts off innocently enough: a day trip, a few hours in the country. The road winds through valley and dale. You pass clusters of sheep and a lone cow chewing the cud under an oak. The sky spreads blue through the car’s windshield. You feel immortal, as though life was a Russian doll, promise concealing within it further promise.

Your wife is happy, as well. Acceleration makes you feel like a shrike. Houses blur past, then fields, then more houses. Dense copses of trees crowd around the shining road. You drive until you stop at one of the more charming towns.

Charming towns are often small towns. Indeed, they are likely charming for no other reason but their size. To the traveler weary of the large city, they seem comfortable. The streets are narrow, sandwiched between rows of shops. Inside each one of these stores, like a worm inside a nut, is a shopkeeper. These often simple individuals sit silent at the register. Some smile absently. Some stare into space, perhaps dreaming of God, or the warm comfort an ample woman offers on a dark winter night. Some sell necessities – milk, bread, oranges and cigarettes. Others survive by exploiting the human instinct for acquiring baubles. Their stores are stores of plastic whistles and novelty sunglasses, false eyelashes, and turquoise leggings.

Sometimes a shopkeeper foregoes minding the counter for society out of doors. Rarely does he sit in his rocking chair unaccompanied. Like a magnet that attracts metal shavings, the shopkeeper attracts townsfolk. They cluster round him. They occupy vacant seats, or sit upon the ground, at the shopkeeper’s knees. They wait. For what? Life in a small town moves slowly. Clocks drag their hands. The sun fairly staggers across the sky. The moon sits as solid and round as a cue ball in the universe’s black expanse. The traveler senses this. He comes for the day, but he feels as though this day in the country amounts to a city month. Even his blood, it seems, moves sluggishly through his veins. He too waits for the shopkeeper.

Then it begins. The shopkeeper lifts a hand, slaps it against a thigh, and a sound so sweet and sharp rings out that all, townsfolk and traveler alike, smile in response. Another slap follows, this time on the opposite thigh. Then the hands move faster. The shopkeeper looks to the sky, as though taking direction from the heavens. A hand beats against his chest, another hand slaps a calf. The townsfolk clap to the rhythm. The traveler taps his foot. This is an orchestra not of men, but of bodies. The muscles thrill to the sound; the brain whirrs with the rhythm. Mouths hang open – even the tongue attempts an escape, wishes to abide the tyranny of the vocal cords no longer, and slap a leg or flick a wrist.

The shopkeeper sings:

“Hambone, hambone Where you been? Round the world and I’m going again. What you gonna do when you come back? Take a little walk by the railroad track. Hambone!”

Hamboning, a musical form so ancient that only the body can serve as its instrument, is found in towns small and unprepossessing, where time and thoughts move but slowly. Its practitioners are often simple peddlers of goods and other priests of the material. For only such men could transform their arms and legs, chest and cheeks into an instrument of divine music. Though he does not know it, it is to hear this music of the gods, this music of bodily inspiration, that the traveler escapes his city for towns beyond field and valley. It is not his mind that makes his decision, but his hands, chest, thighs and brain. Body parts wish to jerk and slap and sing. Unbeknownst to the mind, they decide that it is time to visit the town, where the collective simplicity allows for spontaneous bursts of song from flesh and bone.

The subjects of these songs are varied. Some sing of pleasures long since gone from the cities – fishing, watching shooting stars (or “fizzlers” as the townsfolk like to say), eating iced cream, or shucking corn. Others make their songs about topics more esoteric – god, love, and, of course, the pleasures provided by an amply endowed woman. But all hamboning songs speak of the Infinite, of that Presence beyond the stars, whose existence has preceded that of the planets and who will live long after our sun has collapsed on itself.

The hamboner could be likened to a transistor radio, picking up on that eternal signal that has animated simple peoples across space and time. The aboriginal dances of the peoples of the frozen northlands are likely animated by the same signal as the hamboner. Who can say why the intellect drowns out this signal? Why does it beam through, loud and clear, in the niches of the world desolate and spare. Who can say why the stars speak to the hamboner, but not to the scientist. The hamboner’s joy is the joy of the heavens, a joy that has been extinguished by the modern mania for questioning origins and natures. To hambone is to be pure, untainted by the Enlightenment. To hambone is to be in dialogue with our earliest ancestors, who too likely rap their thighs in delight, rejoicing in sounds only the body can make.

But should these simple townsfolk fall prey to identity theft, such joyful music would soon cease. For identity theft plagues the mind with worry, devours the body with anxiety. The legs that should resound so rhythmically wither and weaken. The chest that should boom with authority caves with despair. The ham boning body is a free and easy body. It has no worries. It answers to a higher power. Make your body a ham boning body by ensuring you won’t ever fall prey to identity theft. Invest in identity theft protection or credit monitoring today. An ounce of prevention can mean a lifetime of hamboning.

4 Tips on How to Mount an Aggressive Response to ID Theft

If you consider the frequency with which incidents of identity theft grab headlines, it’s no exaggeration to say that the crime can hit you at any moment. If you’re not prepared for it, you can expects weeks — if not months or years — of financial headaches, new credit refusals, and other persistent hassles.

Acquainting yourself with the signs of identity theft is one way to make sure fraudsters don’t catch you flat-footed. Many credit card companies extend their customers’ the service of flagging suspicious charges, which prevents them from being completed.

If you’re lucky, that is. Many times ID thieves manage to bypass the monitoring apparatuses of credit card companies. The temptation of huge fraud potential means that crooks have stepped up their game. As ID theft countermeasures evolve, so too do ID thieves criminal strategies.

Your credit card company can’t always catch identity theft. It therefore remains up to you to exercise constant vigilance over your own affairs. The fact that you sensitive information adorns so many documents these days — from Social Security cards to passports, from bank accounts to drivers licenses — keeping a lid on data leakage can prove a daunting challenge.

Indeed, it may just be a matter of not if but when you will fall victim to ID theft. Accepting this possibility allows you to be prepared to deal with the crime briskly and effectively when it happens.

The Internet fortunately makes it easy to deal with an incident of identity theft — provided that you know exactly what action to take. These 4 tips advise you in the proper way to go about reporting identity theft online.

Specifically, a proactive, aggressive response to ID theft requires that you:

  • File a report with your local police;
  • Set up fraud alert service with Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion (the 3 major credit reporting agencies);
  • Alert the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to the fact that you have fallen victim to identity theft;
  • Put your credit card and bank accounts on hold under you can secure new card numbers.

Robust action against ID theft begins with these 4 measures, but it doesn’t end there. You’ll also need the services of such a high-profile identity theft protection provider as LifeLock or TrustedID. After getting hit once by a fraudster, you’ll never want to get hit again. Either of these providers can help you to see to it that there isn’t a second time.

Who Is Checking Your Credit, and Why?

credit reportIt seems these days that just about everyone wants to check your credit history. Once solely a means for loan officers to obtain relevant information, credit checks have become de rigeur for utility accounts, home rentals, and even prospective employment.

With so many parties demanding credit history information, knowing who exactly is doing the looking — and for exactly what reasons — is critical, especially if you wish to keep you sensitive data from falling into the wrong hands.

Outside of the finance industry the two parties that most frequently demand to check your credit history are potential employers and landlords. Potential employers want to look “at the ‘whole life’ profile of candidates for employment, rather than just their immediate technical skills and their ability to do the job,” reports an August 19, 2011 article in the U.K.’s Stirling Observer. “Employers may check your credit score, and read your credit report to find out more about you. They will be interested in questions such as: Are you in debt? Do you have outstanding court judgments or fines against you? Are you involved in a serious financial dispute? Do you handle your finances well?”

Allowing potential employers to demand this is an extremely tight job market. High unemployment and slow job creation has made for conditions that vastly favor bosses and owners over workers. The fact that the job market has become a seller’s market has emboldened employers to snoop into applicants’ lives like they had never before dared.

Like potential employers, landlords wish to get a sense of the person behind the rental application. And what besides a credit history presents a more telling snapshot of a prospective tenant’s manner of living. “It used to be the case that if you could come up with a month’s deposit and the first month’s rent, and that you confirmed you had a job, almost every landlord would be pleased to see you,” the Stirling Observer article continues. “They are more cautious these days, probably as a direct consequence of the number of chancers, dodgers and defaulters they’ve experienced in the past. Checking your credit score is one way that landlords seek to protect themselves from bad debt or worse.”

It’s quite clear that a credit check has evolved into much more than an indication of your creditworthiness. It’s now a veritable dossier on you character. This is why you must keep your credit history impeccable. Yet one of the most frequent consequences of identity theft is damaged credit. An incident of identity can thus do far more that prevent you from opening a new credit card account. It can keep you from finding a job or even a place to live. A reputable identity theft protection or credit monitoring service can help you keep your credit history clean.

Next Page »

Copyright © 2012. All rights reserved.

California Venture Partners