welcome to stop my crisis i'm your host vivian gaspar and we are here to talk about something that you probably don't give enough thought to but i'm sure the bad people the burglars the evil doers of the world they are giving a thought a den of these theft and there's a lot more ways that this is happening that you're not even aware of and here today i have with me for more than a decade owning a financial planning firm for twenty five years and running his a denny's staff business which is based on prevention through education welcome marty thank you so much for joining us on our show today tha well i want to ask you what made you get involved and helping people with identity theft back in zero four when it wasn't very well known and i had my bank account hacked i didn't understand what happened because it's never happened in my entire life up until that point so after we fixed it it just was more of a program proactive thing where i started studying it and i became fascinated with it so i've been involved in one way or another for a little less thirteen or fourteen years when i heard that there's more that to a denny theft than just someone hacking into your bank account you told me before that identity theft can actually land you in jail when you haven't done anything wrong tell us about that unfortunately that has become a pretty big scenario for a lot of people and the way that it works is let's say for example one has gotten my identity they're driving along the cops pull them over and they ask them for their driver's license and they get their information and they give them a ticket to appear in court so the court day comes but the thief never shows up so the next step is they release a bench warrant for my arrest i don't know anything is going on until one day the police knock at my door and i get arrested so that's a scenario that happens more often than people are aware is there no different way that can happen any additional ways that having my identity stolen can actually land me in jail if you have a an account that's made up for fish asli one of the things that scammers like to do is they like to open up a shell company meaning a fake company but account now what's happened is almost money is being siphoned in as it's being siphoned into my account same day usually it's sent overseas to a bank account that they have overseas the federal investigators now or the police come and start investigating it and they want to see where the money has been deposited it's being deposited into my account so what do they do they come to me in the process i get arrested for doing this even though these guys had transferred the money overseas correct it's not their burden to prove your guilt but rather you as the victim to prove your innocence that's correct and how much is this actually cost americans i mean there must be an expense that they've become measurable of what it's cost to the american public to become victims of identity theft to get an idea of what that's the last year they said that there was over sixteen billion dollars stolen from fifteen and a half million americans that that's a mind boggling that i really is and that's from forbes and one of the things that they also said was that forty nine percent of that number was related to stolen government documents and medical fraud medical front tell us about this because every still think hacking is related specifically to wanting to take money of your credit cards your bank accounts but you just said medical why does someone want to hack access my radical medical records how does that help them well first of all it's very lucrative how on the black market my social security number will go for a dollar that's it my medical information will go for sixty to seventy dollars explain that discrepancy why is my medical insurance ok they could use the medical in from your medical information to go get a procedure done and the complication that comes about there is that let's just say that they use your medical information to have a procedure done they may have changed your blood type they may have changed your medications that you may or may not be on so that when the time comes are you actually need some kind of medical service you may have a complication because of having their medical information being applied to you and there's no way for me to out for example we all know to check our credit reports and that's one way of finding out if we had been a theft happened financially to us how do we find out if our medical records have been breached unfortunately the way the processing of claims or is called pay and chase where they pay for a claim first and then when they realize it's fraudulent then they go after to try to solve it who are they going after they're going after the insured to start with so they're going to go after me even though i'm the victim of identity theft correct how do i prove that i wasn't the one who did this you have to prove that it wasn't your doctor you know there's a lot of different ways that you have to go through the process but one of the things that one of the reasons why they are really big in this marketplace is as the financial world and the retail world have become really good at protecting identities and you know financial information the medical world is not as sophisticated and a lot of these hospitals and associated businesses with hospitals that maintain the data have very very high cyber attacks statistically it's usually a hospital ninety one percent of hospitals have had at least one cyber attack in the last two years and the associated companies that actually hold the data have had the same thing happen but don't those companies for example hospital doctor's office don't have liability if they don't hold records doctor's office the medical office you can hold hospitals you can hold them responsible but the idea is how do you get to get yourself back to pre breathe status and so you're always going to get in the tourney involved and the private investigator involved all those things are going to happen but the idea is the focus is on how do i get back to where i was before that breach happened but it sounds to me that there's more to it than that if someone has gone in and changed my medical records so if for example if i'm an opossum the blood type and now someone says i am a b if i and up in a car accident and they're looking at my medical records and on a cheap mean i'm unconscious that's correct i literally cost me my life that's correct it's more than just money being stolen from me correct i'm literally dead because of what someone did to change it is there anyone who's a more likely target than not adults you know seniors and young kids why why are those two males targeted area mainly because of child identity theft as a child let's tell the dentist that so why would someone go after children is it because nobody thinks to check children's identities that's correct it's a big reason a child is fifty one times more likely to have their identit stolen than an adult in the same population any particular type of theft i mean is it more financial it's going to go it's usually it's usually focuses around their social security number so one of the things that we always tell people is to have your children's so security number cross reference with the three credit reporting agencies because you've got to understand that the children so security numbers cyber these are going after so security numbers that are really inactive one kind could be could have two meanings and then the other one is where they go after children because children really don't know never really used or security number until they get closer to when they graduate high school going to college and you look for you know you have someone from birth  l seventeen eighteen years this eighteen years and no one's thinking to check crew members that's correct and it's very it's not complicated it's not expensive to reach out to the credit reporting agencies and have that all handled is there anything that someone could do to protect themselves right now we're raising the consciousness the awareness that if you're not careful someone stealing your license driver's license or mation your medical records and of course your bank account information and credit cards granted what do we do to protect ourselves now that we know well there's there's a number of things that you do but being vigilant paying attention i always say that having a plan helps you recover from identity theft or preventing identity theft faster than not having a plan and what i mean about having a plan is knowing your rights in some case something does happen or for preventing things what you can what you can definitely do like getting your own free credit report each year if you have been hacked you can the credit report creditors from at stop hassling you that's an example of your right in the event that you were breached another one is no the best practices there's a listing of met things that you can do real simple things like monitoring and so forth of different types and the third thing is to have some kind of identity monitoring program that covers more than just credit a lot of people sure i just have done something sure has any of this any connection to making some vulnerable to being stalked is there any cross connection could be so for example i heard that there's something called a reverse look up is that something that's easy to do if you're a bad person if you're more criminally minded it is one of  those you could do is have a peel box as opposed to having all your mail go to your street address so i think we're stepping skipping a couple step that's our viewing audience what is the reverse look at reverse lookup is where they have the street and they coordinate it with your name your house number so what does that mean i can see it has to do with your phone number right now your address your phone number yes so if someone has my phone number so for example every place you shop around here fits your supermarket sponsor noble for your membership whatever there's so many places every shop you have a discount membership now days every once your membership in a lot of them may still ask you to give your phone number to access the discount club you know so years ago i was actually a victim of  theft and how they obtain my phone number is i was at barnes and noble bunch of years ago and somebody behind me on line overheard me giving out my fun and bird to get my discount membership literally within minutes i was getting prank phone calls you know someone overheard it because it was basically like the typical heavy breathing and a lot of these weirdo phone calls and luckily for me i was not getting my mail at home i held on to business i was getting my mail work but i understand that if i had been getting my mail at home it's where ever you get your phone bill someone looks up your phone number they can now find out where you live or you could you have yourself and your family in danger is that the right concept one concept for sure and they call that they if they don't steal from your mailbox you could steal like updates that automatically come up on your computer or always address that and always do the updates because they have found something in there that might have a hole in it that a that a hacker can get through so they've updated it so always update your software what about your malware and a send out an e mail where people actually click a link and now they get malware downloading through into their computer how does that help them well now that now they can create a fake they can do a lot of things with that one a simple example there was a bank that was actually hacked in colombia where they created these false pages so that when people actually went in and signed into their account they were actually signing into the false page and then as they got in then after that the hackers went into the site and cleaned out the bank accounts so it was somebody else's you know that similar thread right when someone's doing shopping like and going shopping online is that important someone always use a credit card sort of a debit card for security always simply in my opinion simply because of the fact would you rather have your credit card breach or your debit card where they claim that your bank account breached right and oh by the way what about the h t t p s i heard that s is for security to make sure you got your site yet always want to make sure it's a secure site very good the hackers still haven't really been able to duplicate that you know and if you get an e mail you always want to check the source of the e mail so that if it's you know coming from a source that says one thing like it says a bank of america but then when you hold her over the e mail and it doesn't say bank of america you definitely don't want to open the e mail there's a statistic that says sixty five percent of all e mails are happy are there basically flowing flow nice e mails yes there's someone phishing to get you know exactly what release basically so kind of virus or damage or pardon me that was what i was looking for well already this is great we definitely ran out of time but a lot of valuable information and i hope people understand that now techie savvy criminals they don't want to get bitten by the family dog they'd rather just steal who you are instead of just what you have because what's in your house is not nearly as valuable as your personal identification from your bank account to your medical history and your medical insurance  expert in our small business owners can act more like large corporation and utilize business credit to their advantage here with me today is se de se welcome to the show and thank you for helping small business owners last and profit and thrive in their businesses by using finance to their benefit thank you for having me on the show in launching this book i know your passion for small businesses and helping them achieve to stop their crisis and i thought this would be the perfect place to launch this book with a view from an advocate standpoint well we're very excited because i know this can change in pivot small business owners who might be getting started or launching to a new level in their business understand that overcoming the financial hurdle is what would help them make or break or even hire a bigger staff or get the marketing or whatever they need to get to a higher level of success and businesses do not have business credit nor do they know how to go back steps in it i am really shocked about that how is it virtually every single small business owner does not understand that how is that possible two issues one there is no unilateral lending process across the spectrum between banks credit unions credit reporting companies no one sinked the second thing is small business owners think their business credit is a misnomer they think that you have to use your personal credit to get business credit and that's not the case yes is there anyone currently out there educating small business owners on that how about to the s b a or s p d c or any other business advisory to small business owners no no no possibly what is the answer behind why ninety nine percent this is what gave me the wherewithal to write this book i went to a conference years ago and it was basically how to bring funding to small business in this conference room full of two hundred people you had all of your apple bits all that you just name including the federal reserve the f b i see bank of america chase and they were talking about business credit so for an hour he talked about how the small business owner with me business credit to make the business grow and finally after an hour i raise my hand and i said i have a question can anyone in the room tell me how to go about single time absolutely they give your credit report yes they want money so they're not bureaus their companies will kill right there misnomer so one of the things that i realize was in doing that research in seventeen years of dealing with businesses and structuring businesses was that small business owners do not understand the playing field it's a main i've always heard to have good personal credit should have some amount of credit cards at a certain amount of usage level yeah you know i third it's like want that but you should in order to have better credit worthiness because you don't know if you want to mortgage if you want a car so for personal business owner if they're not looking to take on business credit what is the benefit for them to establish credit worth business entity here's the deal i always ask a business owner what are your plans for the future do you like a five year plan it would be a put in be a one year plan and most is like you know i want to grow a successful business and make money now should they have a business plan to be able to answer that properly well that's a whole nother topic but let's before we go there let's go back on the credit side in this country cash is no longer king credit is credit is king did after people realize that no a lot of business owners are like well i absolutely absolutely there are different phases of credit that you should have so a credit card is one thing even on the personal side right but that's only one strain of credit what about installment loans so if you have a credit card let's say your credit score was seven thirty it will never go over seven thirty i don't care if you only use fourteen percent usage of the card it will never go over seven thirty because to a lender you don't have enough risk we need to know how are you with installment loan ok so here's my credit and credit credit question for a small business owners credit or the business entity right if you're a sole proprietor does that still count or what your business towards your business no ok so you have to be an established is it l l c or s corp let's talk about a sequel we touched on that earlier crack here's the deal you need to be a structured corporation so that includes the escort pass through taxation the only difference is you have to follow your intentions with that wrist i think it's a form eighty three thirty eight that you plan to file with through as a small business would pass through taxation but because corporations are more structured and when i have say that you set up with the secretary of state you have your board members listed you have your principles listed right two things creditors care about stability stability you said things corporate creditors care about correct stability and accountability ok i want to be able to but you when i meet you and other words i want to be able to call and talk to a live person that's a member does it make a difference if it's a u p s store dress what use are those so that's not going to work yes not good at all ok you can actually use your home address and that i encourage you in the book use your home address it's a stable address you've been there registered to you here's another question of why someone would want business credit so even if somebody right now says oh i don't want to have the burden having debt what about in the future what if right now for example let's say someone starts as a business that rents out of a small office space more retail space or even does a lot of home based businesses right what if down the line they might end up growing their business right and might look to maybe perhaps by commercial real estate entity such as your c corporate where build up enough business credit to buy real estate in that entity's name can that be that purpose yes let's go back to how old corporations are they've been around think about it you're a small business owner you wear all the hat you have to do everything but your company is like a baby you have to grow it up you're not the baby you're the parent of the baby same thing with a corporation your tax id number is like the social security number for your business and you should build it up and bill critic in that in the book i talk about the ways to build it up the right corporate structure and there are let there are eleven critical requirements that every small business owner must have eleven eleven something we're going to cover now no you really do not to get that but i'll get you something i never even realized i'll give you two of them let's say you start a business right yes you're doing fine and you're doing banking corporation it's attached to you the individual that's one critical them that you have to have a bank account in your business name i'm sure every small business owner has a bank account in their business no they don't know oh no a lot of them are doing business a here's the thing a lot of people get their tax id number and say hey i got my business up i'm going to go another how do you decide how do you not have a bank account for that business doing business ass so an individual doing business has a right  unprofessional corporate creditors don't take you serious if you don't take your business serious why would a corporate creditor now i've always known that it should be and at your business is dot com you should always everybody should have a real your out website business and it also means to me that you are individual who's very serious about their business and that you're doing it full time and this is something that you care about it's if someone's doing g mail right i give them less credibility in my mind automatically so do i started to find my first company when i was nineteen so when i started to cry i have some idea about what this is about right so when i see someone else doing that easy mistake what does that reflect in my mind so i completely agree with you and i agree with really i think it's going to fantastic that people can reach out to you off your website and speak to you get consultations because everybody needs to do that i mean really i think what many people don't know what they're doing but they won a successful business and they're not going to get it right and they're looking at you like oh my god i have no no idea right now the single you know a powerful about the book is i give you more than twenty five corporate creditors in the book with instructions that tell you how to set up business credit with those corporate credit thank you very much i see that is fantastic information