The 529 plan is a tax-advantaged college savings plan. Of course, like all plans that offer IRS sanctioned tax savings, there are rules and regulations regarding just how and when a 529 plan may be used. One of these limitations involves how much money you can contribute to a 529 plan in 2012.

Head over here if you are looking for how a 529 plan works.

2012 529 Contribution Limits

Unlike IRA plans, where there are new 2012 IRA contribution limits, or other child tax credits, there is no income limits for 529 plans. That means that you can contribute to a 529 plan regardless of whether you are a high-income taxpayer or not.

There are, however, still a few kinds of contribution limitations for IRA accounts that you want to be aware of.

The first 529 plan contribution limit comes from the plan itself. Since 529 plans are administered by each of the 50 states, there can be 50 different plan rules. For each plan, there may be both an annual contribution limit and a lifetime contribution limit. In addition, for states that offer a state income tax deduction for 529 plan contributions, there may be a limitation on how much of each year’s contribution may be deducted.

For example, the State of Colorado has no annual contribution limit, but restricts contributions to a Colorado 529 plan once the account balance hits $280,000. On the other hand, California 529 plans allow contributions until the account balance is $350,000.

For some taxpayers, the most important 529 plan contribution limitation isn’t actually a 529 plan limit at all. IRS rules state that contributions to a 529 plan are a gift. Therefore, to avoid triggering potential gift tax implications, contributions must be limited to under $13,000 each year, which is the 2012 gift tax limit. A married filing joint couple can contribute up to $26,000 per year, which is considered one $13,000 gift from each person.

Special Gift Tax Rule for 529 Plans

There is a special rule for 529 plans regarding gift taxes. Up to five years of gifts can be made in advance to a 529 plan without triggering any estate tax or gift tax implications. In other words, a single person can contribute up to $65,000 in a single year to an individual’s 529 plan. However, such a contribution is considered an advance on future year’s gifts. Therefore, if one contributes the full $65,000 into a 529 plan, then no additional gifts may be made for five years.

Again, a spouse may contribute the full gift amount as well. In this case, a married couple that files jointly could contribute $130,000 in a single year to a 529 plan as long as they did not make any additional gifts to that same person for the next five years.

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529 Contribution Limits 2012 originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

Your credit score is a critical component of your financial well being. Your credit score is computed from the information in one of your credit reports. Those credit reports are maintained by the major credit bureaus. If there is an issue with your credit report, you’ll have to fight your way through the standard red tape of major corporations with the added complication that you aren’t really the credit bureau’s customer, so they really aren’t very interested in hearing from you in the first place. Finding a useful credit bureau phone number is, therefore, sometimes tricky.

Before Calling a Credit Bureau

Before you grab your phone and dial, consider whether or not calling the credit bureau will actually be useful to you. For example, if there is some incorrect information on your credit report, it may be better to dispute the wrong information in writing. Even if you call directly to the CEO, disputes still have to be made according to the credit bureau’s dispute procedure, so calling the wrong number is a waste of time.

Also, if you wish to enter your own customer statement into your credit report, that can be done electronically as well.

However, there may be times when you need to directly call the credit bureaus, in that case, try to find the right phone number for the function you are trying to achieve.

If you want to get your credit score, you may want to check into one of the free online credit score services such as Credit Karma, Quizzle or Credit Sesame.

Phone Numbers for Credit Bureaus

These phone numbers may change in the future.

Experian Phone Numbers

• Order Credit Report: 1-888-397-3742
• Dispute Information on Credit Report: Call specific number on your credit report
• Report Fraud or Identity Theft: 1-888-397-3742
• Credit Freeze: State Dependent

Transunion Phone Numbers

• Free Credit Report if Denied Credit Call: 1-800-888-4213
• Order Credit Report By Phone: 1-800-888-4213
• Dispute Items on Credit Report: 1-800-916-8800
• Place Fraud Alert on Credit Report: 1-800-680-7289
• Place Security Freeze on Credit Report: 1-888-909-8872
• Main Number: 1-800-916-8800

Equifax Phone Numbers

• Report Fraud and Place Fraud Alert: 1-888-766-0008
• Place Security Freeze on Credit Report: 1-800-349-9960
• Credit Report Inquires: 1-800-685-111
• Order Credit Report and Credit Score: 1-866-493-9788

All three credit bureaus have a unified system to allow customers to opt-out of marketing offers and junk mail based upon your credit report. In other words, you can tell the credit bureaus to stop selling your credit report information to credit card companies and lenders. The phone number to opt-out of marketing from all three credit reporting companies is: 1-888-567-8688 (1-888-5-OPT-OUT)

Don’t forget that you can also get one free credit report from each credit bureau every year at annualcreditreport.com

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Credit Bureau Phone Numbers originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

Credit Sesame is another in a growing list of online services that allow you to view and monitor your credit score for free. We’ve already looked at some of these services. First, we checked to see if Credit Karma is a scam. Then, we looked at whether Quizzle is a scam. Credit Sesame looks like these other online service on the surface, but let’s dive in an look deeper.

Just like we noted when doing our Credit Karma review, the credit score you get from Credit Sesame is not a free FICO score. While the Credit Karma score comes from Tansunion, the Credit Sesame credit score comes from Experian.

Like the others, the company makes money thanks to advertising from financial companies, like credit card issuers and lenders, as well as getting commissions on referrals to products. In fact, the company says that one of the service they provide is to “Optimize Your Current Loans.” If you sign up for Credit Sesame, you’ll know doubt be informed that you could save hundreds of dollars by signing up for other cards or loans that, of course, you can click on a link in order to get started right away.

Credit Sesame vs Credit Karma

In addition to using different credit bureau’s credit reports to calculate your credit score, there are some differences in the features between Credit Sesame versus Credit Karma.

Credit Sesame offers a “What If” modeling tool that predicts what will happen to your finances based upon a different credit score. It’s a no brainer that a higher credit score yields lower interest rates, but this tool lets you see just how much you might save depending upon whether your credit score was a little higher, or a lot higher.

Credit Sesame Safe?

It is always difficult to decide whether to trust an online service like Credit Sesame with your confidential personal information. At some level, if you are going to use their service you have to trust them, just like you do when you give a bank or financial institution your credit information, social security number and the like. There is never any way to know 100 percent for sure if something is safe, but there is a reality check that typically can show you the way.

For example, Credit Sesame was founded in April of 2010, so it hardly qualifies as fly-by-night two years later. The company has also been profiled by several mainstream news publications, who, theoretically, would have noticed if the company was a bald-faced scam.

Second, the company has raised nearly $7.5 million in capital from some well known investors and venture capital firms. This isn’t a blank check for trust, but running an online scam generally doesn’t go hand in hand with raising several millions of dollars from investors. If you were trying to run off to Rio with a bunch of money, pocketing the millions you got from investors is probably faster and more lucrative than selling off the financial data of little old ladies.

Finally, the founder of the company has a real, verifiable track record as an entrepreneur who not only has founded financial companies in the past, but also sold them to very legitimate financial corporations.

In the end, Credit Sesame offers a useful service for most users.

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Credit Sesame Scam or Legit? originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

Credit Karma made waves when it started offering free credit scores online. At first, many people, including me, were worried that the whole thing was just a big Credit Karma scam. However, after doing some research into whether Credit Karma is legit and even doing an in-depth CreditKarma.com review, I realized that while there may be some concerns over Credit Karma’s accuracy, there is nothing underhanded about the online financial service.

Credit Monitoring Scam

This year, Credit Karma is offering it’s registered users something new. They are expanding beyond their flagship service of offering to show users a free credit score and moving into to offering free credit report monitoring.

One of the biggest financial scams in America comes courtesy of the credit reporting industry and the three major credit reporting bureaus. In class Mafia-style extortion, a tough looking guy visits a local business. He says that bad things might happen to his business. In order to be safe, he should pay for “protection.” Of course, the only protection the business needs is from the crooks offering the protection. Credit reports and credit report monitoring work the same way.

The credit bureau’s extortion scheme works exactly the same way. You see, bad things might happen to your credit report. Someone might put false, damaging information in your file. The “smart” thing to do is to check your credit report often. To do that, you have to pay your protection money for a credit monitoring service so that you can be informed when negative information goes on your credit report. Of course, the only thing you need “protection” from is the credit bureaus and their lackadaisical efforts to ensure that only accurate information is on your credit report. Not surprisingly, Transunion, Experian and Equifax all gladly offer high-priced credit monitoring protection.

Unfortunately, just like the Mafia, the credit bureaus aren’t satisfied with just extorting a one-time fee. Instead, they use every trick in the book to get suckers customers to sign up for automatically renewing subscriptions that will charge your credit card or debit your bank account for life, all to “protect” you.

Free Credit Monitoring from CreditKarma.com

Credit Karma is offering it’s users a new option. Once signed up for Credit Karma, users can opt-in to a free credit report monitoring service. Every time negative information shows up on your credit report, Credit Karma will send an email alert. Unfortunately, at that point, the only thing you can do is order a copy of your credit report from the credit bureaus. If you are lucky, then you can get your government mandated free annual credit report.

If you already looked at in the past year, however, you will have to pay money in order to get your report, get bombarded with offers for free-trials that are actually auto-renewing subscriptions to expensive services, and then find the negative credit info in your report. Credit Karma has nothing to do with that part of the industry and it certainly isn’t their fault. Hopefully, the trend toward more accessible free credit information will continue. In the meantime, the credit industries high-paid lobbyists will ensure that other than that one free report each year, that you pay through the nose to keep financial companies from lying about you.

Fortunately, Credit Karma allows you the piece of mind of not having to pay every month, or every year, for a credit report monitoring subscription. By checking your free credit score number regularly and signing up for the CreditKarma.com free credit report alerts, you should be able to detect when something is going wrong. You’ll have to pay to find out exactly what and then to fix it, but at least you won’t be wasting money buying credit reports or paying fees when there are no issues with your credit.

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Credit Karma Review Free Credit Monitoring originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

One topic that generates a lot of confusion in people’s personal finances is what is the difference between exempt and nonexempt employees?

There are actually a lot of nuances and pages of labor law that deal with the difference between nonexempt and exempt employees. However, the practical implications of what it means to be an exempt employee or non exempt employee are pretty straight forward.

Basically, it comes down to whether you have to be paid for overtime or whether you have to be paid the minimum wage.

What Is An Exempt Employee

The definition of exempt employee is one who is not subject to the minimum wage or overtime rules of the Fair Labor Standards Act, or FLSA.

An FLSA exempt employee must fall into one of several categories to qualify as exempt. What determines exempt employee by labor law standards is what role the employee has in their job. A job title is not enough to make an employee exempt.

There are several types of exempt employees including certain employees under age 20, employees of a motor carrier (drivers), and certain types of seasonal and farm workers. In addition, a broad category of salaried exempt employee allows certain employees to be exempt from federal labor law provisions.

Check out the latest Citibank rewards card review…

Salaried Exempt Employee

A salaried exempt employee is an employee in one of several jobs including executive, administrative or professional employees as defined in the FLSA. Certain computer employees can also be exempt from overtime provisions provided they are paid a wage of at least $27.63 per hour.

Non-salaried Exempt Employee

Certain people who are not paid a salary can also be exempt employees. Non-salaried exempt employees include drivers, farmworkers, workers at automobile dealerships and seasonal and recreational employees (ski areas, amusement parks).

Commissioned sales employees of retail or service establishments are also exempt from overtime rules as along as more than half of the employee’s earnings come from commissions and the employee averages at least one and one-half times the minimum wage for each hour worked.

Other Exempt Employees

Certain people are exempt from either the minimum wage standards or overtime rules just from being in one of several defined jobs.

FLSA Exempt Positions:

• Airline employees
• Babysitters
• Boat salespeople
• Workers with disabilities
• Fishing industry employees
• Local delivery drivers
• Newspaper delivery
• Railroad employees
• Seamen on both American and non-American vessels
• Taxi drivers
• Youth employed by their parents

What Being Exempt Means

On a practical basis, for most people, being an exempt employee means that you do not earn overtime pay for working more than 40 hours per week. Most professional employees make well above the minimum wage, so any exemption to being paid minimum wage is moot.

Jobs with minimum wage exceptions are typically those that involve either earning tips or commissions and those where the employee is a minor or under age 20. Generally, these jobs are not exempt from paying overtime, although one and a half times the low hourly rate they pay isn’t a big difference many times.

Current Minimum Wage

The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. Many states, and even some local governments, have their own minimum wage. To be valid, a state’s minimum wage must be higher than the federal minimum wage, otherwise, the employee must be paid at least the federal minimum wage.

The U.S. Department of Labor provides numerous online resources about employment law and labor law including a Handy Reference to the Fair Labor Standards Act.

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Exempt vs Nonexempt Employees originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

An interesting opportunity to get full-quality major software company retail money management, budgeting, and small business accounting software for free is now in affect. Microsoft has decided to get out of the financial software business, in effect ceding the market to Intuit and its Quicken and QuickBooks software products. However, thousands of copies of Microsoft Money software are installed by users all over the world, and they depend upon Microsoft Money to manage their finances on the computer. Just abandoning these users would be bad business strategy, so Microsoft has released a new free version of Microsoft Money for download.

Unlike earlier versions of Microsoft Money, the newest version of MS Money does not have any online functionality. These kind of automatic Internet links to bank accounts and brokerage accounts require frequent updating and the company doesn’t want to get stuck doing that forever. Instead, Microsoft has released the last version of Microsoft Money called the Sunset edition. This version of Money contains all the functionality of the full-price retail version of the MS Money except for that online connectivity.

The sunset edition is stand-alone software, meaning that it no longer links to anything. For some users this might be a drawback, but for small business owners and entrepreneurs looking for a way to manage their finances and handle basic business accounting, this is great news.

Microsoft has released sunset versions of all MS Money editions including Microsoft Money Home and Business. That means that small business owners can download and install Microsoft’s full small business edition of Money and use it forever for free. Keeping track of business expenses, invoices, and even small business tax deductions is all a snap with MS Money Home and Business.

The only reason I haven’t used something like it for a long time in order to handle my freelance writing business‘s finances is because I did not want to pay for full version software, mostly because both Money and Quicken require you to keep paying for the software in order to keep getting the required updates. It would be one thing if not updating the software left you with only your current functionality (after all, there is no such thing as a free lunch), but these financial management software packages come with time bombs that eventually render them useless even if you don’t use the new functionality or features.

Of course, the excuse for this Quicken and QuickBooks scam is that it is for our own good because they don’t want us relying on out of date information. They have a point, but if you are savvy about money management, you don’t really rely on the generic advice provided by your computer software anyway, so it stinks for us.

That is what makes this once in a lifetime opportunity to get financial software free from a major vendor such a great deal. While Microsoft Money will never be updated again, it will also never be expired either. That means that once you get all of your MS Money accounts setup and working the way you want to, you can keep using them as long as you would like.

Even if you don’t have a small business, if you are even considering ever starting up a business you should download the MS Money Home and Business Sunset Edition. It has all the same functionality and features as Microsoft Money Sunset Edition Home edition plus the features needed for small business owners. If you don’t have a small business yet, just don’t create a business account with Microsoft Money and it will work just like the regular personal version. Just keeping track of equipment and taking the Section 179 Deduction for business will make it worth your effort.

It’s free, so get the best edition you can. You might need it some day, because this simple small business accounting software could last you a long time.

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Free Small Business Accounting Software Microsoft Money Home and Business originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

The old maxim, “If it is too good to be true, it probably is,” holds up especially well in the world of personal finance. The concept of getting free credit scores has been mined by con-artists and scammers repeatedly. Unfortunately, most of these scams are perpetrated by well known companies and by the credit reporting bureaus themselves.

The free credit score scam usually goes like this. A company offers to give you a “free” credit score. To get your free score you have to sign up. If you don’t read every word on the screen or printed on the page very carefully (especially the ones in fine print), you might think that you are just signing up to get a free credit score. Gotcha!

What you are actually signing up for is a “free” trial membership in the company’s credit monitoring service. The trial is free for 30 days, or 90 days, but at the end of the free trial, you automatically subscribe to the fully paid subscription. This is why you had to enter a credit card number when you signed up. If they actually had to collect money from you at the end of your free trial, everyone would say, “No thanks.” Instead, they use that credit card to automatically bill you. Most of the time, they bill you for the whole year, in advance, all at once. That way, by the time you notice it on your credit card bill, it is too late for you to back out and get a full refund and since there is no way you want to legitimately subscribe to the service, they get you for 12 months instead of one month.

Worst of all, is that they will automatically renew your subscription when it expires, so 12 months later when you’ve forgotten all about how they screwed you over in the first place, they can do it all over again. It stinks of fraud, but all of the “disclosures” are made (again in tiny print, or buried in a six-page document), so technically it passes legal muster.

Transunion, Equifax, and Experian all pull this marketing scam on their own websites, right next to the part where they try to trick you into getting your “free” credit report that isn’t really free either.

Don’t forget you can get a real free credit report every 12 months (that’s once a year) by law. Don’t ever pay or subscribe to something to get your legitimate free credit report.

Tip: If you have to enter a credit card number, you are getting scammed. Real free credit reports DO NOT require you to enter a credit card number at all.

Free Credit Report from CreditKarma Scam Too?

Knowing all of this about how credit scores work and how credit repair scams an the like go down, I ignored the offer of “free” credit scores from Credit Karma. Scam, scam, scam, I thought.

But, then, I read a write-up about Credit Karma by a financial journalist that I happen to trust and respect. (It is a very small club.) That got me wondering about how it could be true that Credit Karma gives you your credit score for free.

With a legitimate financial writer’s endorsement in mind, I decided to try out Credit Karma. However, I did it very warily.

First, I signed up for a new email address to use so that I would know if Credit Karma sold my email address or spammed it with credit card offers.

Next, I obtained a one-time use online credit card number from one of my credit cards and set the amount to $1 (the lowest allowed) and the expiration to the next month (the shortest allowed.)

Then, I went to Credit Karma’s website at www.creditkarma.com

(There is no link, because I want readers to know that I do not get any sort of kickback, payment, or referral bonus for this review of Credit Karma.)

Continue here to see my full Credit Karma review.

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Credit Karma Scam or Legit Free Credit Scores? originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

Many people like the idea of working from home. There is more flexibility. It allows parents to spend more time with their kids. Dads who work from home have more opportunities to participate in events they traditionally miss like afternoon school plays, or soccer practice. Likewise, many moms who have built up great careers are looking for a way to not lose everything that they have built, while at the same time not missing out on raising their children. In order to keep their personal financial plans on track, taking on some work at home sounds great.

Unfortunately, the universal allure of work at home jobs makes it a great target for scammers. The idea of someone paying a good wage for working from your own home at a home-based business that requires no experience, no start-up costs, and no set time commitment sounds too good to be true. It usually is. Being aware is the best financial advice you can get.

How To Find Legitimate Work at Home Jobs

Real work at home jobs that are not scams do exist. However, they don’t come wrapped in rainbows delivered on a unicorn’s back. By taking another look at working from home from a different angle, you’ll find that it is easy to separate the work at home scams from the real work at home jobs.

The first thing to do is remember what jobs are like in “the real world.” That is, how do jobs work when they are not work at home jobs. How much do traditional jobs that require no experience, no time commitment, and no sales pay? How common are they? Just because the jobs are done at home and not at an employer’s office doesn’t mean that dynamic changes.

After all, how easy would it be to find people to fill work from home with unlimited income potential jobs that were easy and required no special skills or experience? Would you even have to advertise? Wouldn’t everyone you know be begging to sign up?

Finally, remember this tidbit. If the work can be done from the comfort of your own home with nothing more than a computer and an Internet connection, then that same work can be done from China or India with nothing more than a computer and an Internet connection. If you can pay someone overseas 30 cents an hour to do it, why would you pay a stay at home mom or dad $25 an hour (or more) to do the same thing?

So, how do you find real work at home jobs no investment required?

Secret For Finding Real Work From Home Jobs

The secret to finding real work at home jobs is to not look for work at home jobs. Work at home is a phrase that people use when they do not actually understand how working from home is done by real companies. It is the sucker’s bait that scammers use.

Remember, out in the corporate world, companies and businesses of all sizes are constantly trying to make things sound better by coming up with new phrases, or calling something by a different name. Nobody gets fired anymore; they don’t even get laid off. Workers are “let go” or “downsized” or even “right-sized” these days. Do you honestly thing any real company still uses the phrase, “work from home” in their job postings?

Real work at home jobs go by different names. One of the most common names for work from home jobs that are real is “telecommuting” or “telecommute” which means commuting by telecommunications systems, or working from home with a phone and Internet connection.

Other legitimate work from home jobs will be referred to as “contract” and “off-site” jobs. (In business, the world revolves around the company, so it doesn’t matter where you ARE working, all that matters is that you are NOT working at the office, thus, “off-site.”)

Finally, some work at home jobs are called “freelance” or “freelancing” jobs. As a freelancer, you can work wherever you want. In fact, one of the benefits of hiring a freelance worker is that you don’t have to go through the time and expense of getting them setup with a desk, phone, business cards, and so on like a traditional employee. Just keep in mind that no one needs inexperienced, unskilled freelancers. Rather, skilled workers like professional freelance writers is what business needs.

Use the secret lingo of work at home jobs and you can avoid scams, fraud, and tricksters. Go out searching for “work from home” jobs and applying to “work at home, no experience required” job postings, and you can sit back and wait to see how you will be scammed.

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Where to Find Legit Work at Home Jobs originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

Virtually every one of the so-called work from home jobs is a scam. Keep in mind that while plenty of Americans work from home, they do it for their regular jobs that they already have, and they probably still have to go into the office some times. These people did not find an online ad and get a working from home job with no experience by just filling out some forms and information over the Internet.

Just think it through for one minute. Doing something like data entry from home would be a great job, especially if you could get a job like that without any experience.

That means TONS of people would want these jobs. If that is the case, then why would any business pay high wages for that, especially to someone with no experience?

In fact, if you think about it for just one more second, you should end up with another conclusion. A job that can be done by anyone, from anywhere, without any extensive training, or previous experience is EXACTLY the kind of job that you can outsource overseas to someone making $5 a day.

How could it possibly be that any company or business in the world would pay you "$2,500 to $10,000 a month or more"?

Don’t be naive.

Work From Home Scams

1) Get Your Cash Then Disappear – They will either require you to send in money for something that sounds legit like a background check, or for some sort of kit to get started and you will either get back nothing, or something worthless.

2) Get Your Bank Account Info – They will say that you are hired but they only pay by direct deposit, so they need your bank account information. They may even ask you to sign a form. Then, they will use that info (and your signature if you filled out a form) to rob your account.

3) Get Your SSN for Identity Theft – We have to have you fill out a form so we can withhold taxes for you. That form includes a SSN and your name and address, everything an identity thief needs.

There are jobs that allow you to work from home, but NONE of them hire people without experience for high pay without meeting them.

If you insist on trying it out anyway, protect yourself!

1) Open a new bank account with no money in it. Give them this bank account information, and only if you HAVE TO.

2) Get a Tax ID number instead of your SSN. Working from home in this manner means being an independent contractor. Get a EIN from the IRS and use it instead of your Social Security Number on any paperwork. It is free and you can get one instantly by filling out an online EIN application form. They will probably just ignore you and move on to easier fish (which is proof it was a scam). If the do bother to come back and say it has to be a SSN, then move on.

3) Some jobs do require a background check, but they do not require that you pay for it with money order, cash, or check. Buy a prepaid Visa for the minimum amount and pay with that. Do NOT use a personal credit card.

But, seriously, you will save yourself a lot of time and trouble if you just re-read this article. There are no amazing "unheard of" opportunities out there that allow you to make great income from the comfort of your own home with virtually

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Make Money Working From Home Online Scams originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

Identity theft can happen in a lot of different ways. Some of them are difficult to avoid, if not impossible. Others are easily preventable with a little knowledge, experience, and understanding, plus a little bit of effort. Preventing identity theft with a paper shredder to destroy junk mail and other documents is an important start.

Shred Records Files and Documents to Protect Against Identity Theft

One of the easier methods how to steal someone’s identity is to obtain documents or other papers that have personal information printed on them. Everything from old tax returns, to receipts, to old contracts, or even a utility bill can be a wealth of information for an identity thief. Easier still is to do identity theft while getting a fraudulent credit card at the same time. This is frighteningly easy thanks to banks and credit card companies sending out hundreds of thousands of credit card offers, complete with pre-filled information like your name and address.

While neither your nor the identity thief would be able to interpret it, the various letter and  number combinations printed on the credit card application or special zero percent interest balance transfer offer can also direct the credit card company to approve your credit application right away. These numbers tell the bank that your name has already been approved based upon either having pulled a credit report already, or because of the list your name came from.

The credit reporting companies don’t actually make much money by charging people to look at their own credit reports, or even from the fees they charge lenders to get your credit report, although they are only too happy to collect those fees too. Instead they earn huge amounts of money by selling your information to banks and credit card companies in the form of mailing lists. These lists can be selected by the card issuer to include people living in a certain area, with a household income over a certain amount, and with a credit score over 725. If your name comes off of that mailing list, a pre-approval code is almost certainly sitting on that free cash back credit card offer you got in the mail.

Of course, the biggest gold mine for identity thieves are those "courtesy checks" that credit card companies send by the millions through the mail. Whether it is a zero percent interest balance transfer offer, or just a "friendly reminder" that you can use your cash advance credit line really easily, these checks offer a bonanza for identity theft.

Writing a nice big fraudulent check for merchandise, or even for cash is a nice bonus, but that’s not all. Your name and address are on the checks, of course, and not just any name, but your name as it appears on your credit card. Since most people use the same format (with or without middle initial, with or without full names, etc..) on multiple accounts, that info is very nice to have. But, the best part of all is that these check don’t have the security features of real bank checking account checks. And, since they come from the credit card company on paper printed on a laser printer with paper tearing perforations between each check, they are really easy to print up on a printer so that the thief can write even more bad checks courtesy of your credit card account.

What can you do to stop identity theft from occurring in this manner?

The answer is to shred your mail, records, and files that have personally identifiable information. For many people, this ends up being a tedious and overly time consuming task. That means the new paper shredder they bought to stop identity theft gets used for a while, then instead, a "to be shredded" stack gets created, and finally, people have so much to shred that they don’t even bother.

To avoid shredding burnout, follow these tips for smart identity theft protection with a document shredder.

Best Tips For Shredding Papers to Stop Identity Theft

1. Don’t Buy the Cheapest Paper Shredder – The cheapo shredders at most department stores and some office supply stores will only add to the shredding problem. These paper shredders overhead quickly, so you can’t shred very much at a time. Their blades and cutting mechanisms jam a lot and they get dull fast. In short, you’ll have to buy a new one very soon. It can be hard to tell which paper shredders are the junk ones. The best bet is to use the warranty information. Don’t buy any shredder that only has a one-year warranty or less. Also, make sure the warranty covers the WHOLE SHREDDER, not just part of it.
2. Don’t Buy the Expensive Paper Shredder – You don’t need the top-of-the-line shredder either unless you generate a lot of documents for a business or you handle other people’s personal information. No one is going to put the effort into putting back together your shredded documents, so it doesn’t matter if your shredder does diamond cut or strip cut. Also, you don’t need one to shred CDs or credit cards. Instead, buy a good shredder that can shred more sheets at a time. Buy the shredder that can do the most pages per pass instead of one that does less pages but has extras like a credit card shredder or CD shredder. Get a shredder that can handle at least 8 pages at a time and that has both an OFF and REVERSE setting. Shredders without either are cutting corners.
3. Don’t Shred Everything – There is no need to shred everything, only the papers that have your personal information on them, or are part of an application. When you get junk mail, tear it open. You don’t have to be careful, it doesn’t matter if anything rips. Just do it fast. Throw the outer envelope, the return envelope, and any generic advertising materials (usually the color glossy pages) directly in the recycle bin. Shred anything that has your name or address on it, and anything that is a check or application, as well as anything that has a spot for your signature. Watch for fine print on the back of the papers as a way of detecting things that need shredded.

If you want to have less credit card junk mail show up in the first place, have your name removed from the credit bureau mailing lists that get sold to junk mail marketers by calling 1-888-5-OPTOUT. Remember that this removes your name only for your current address. Opt out again whenever you get a new MAILING address, including a PO Box!

It will take about six-months for you to see an actual reduction in the amount of credit report related mail you get. That is because the marketing companies put together their campaigns in advance and your name will still be on the list they got three months ago that they are using to prepare a mailing for next month. So, stay vigilant with your junk mail shredding until then.

Obviously, shredding your files, mailings, and documents won’t prevent all identity theft,
but it can greatly reduce your chances of getting hit.

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Preventing Identity Theft – Paper Shredder Files and Documents originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com