ID Security Tip #2 – Packing a Secure Wallet

As a business owner, have you ever thought about telling your traveling employees what they should pack in their wallets or purses? Probably not. With identity theft on the rise, an employee who has been victimized will have to use work hours to resolve their issues. In today’s economy you need your employees working on bring in sales and not on their personal problems.

The best way to educate your employees is by holding a security training session where each employee takes everything out of the wallets. You’ll be surprised at what most people carry – their entire identity in their back pocket or over their shoulder. Besides the driver’s license, health insurance card, check debit cards and credit cards, they will also have their library card, gym membership card, pre-paid coffee cards, social security card, store charge cards, multiple gas cards, car insurance cards, paper notes with passwords and the list goes on. We are a plastic card society.

Now ask them if they were to lose their wallet, what kind of damage could someone do with all that information and what hassles would they go through recovering all the information?

Employees really don’t need to carry all these cards on a business trips. They don’t need their social security card, store credit cards or local library card. So before an employee travels, tell them to plan out their wallet or purse like you do their suitcase.  Have them remove all their cards and information, photocopy both the front and back sides, store the copy in a safe location, and only replace those cards that are necessary for the trip. This simple task will allow employees to:

• Limit the damage a thief can do,
• Limit the amount of information they’ll have to remember for a police report, and
• Limit the number of companies they’ll call to cancel services.

From your company’s perspective, by limiting the amount of information employees carry will also limit the time they spend at work canceling cards, filling out reports, monitoring credit reports and talking to authorities. Statistics shows that an identity theft victim can take anywhere from two to four years to recover, and spend as much as 800 hours with the bulk of the time between 8 AM to 5 PM Monday thru Friday.

By helping your employees to protect themselves from identity theft you are also helping your company’s bottom line. Work hours will be spent on work related tasks and less on an employee’s personal ones. So instruct your employees how to pack their wallets.