eScholarship Repository - Corporations with high rates of ID theft
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RIP-OFF ALERT: The Berkeley Center for Law and Technology analyzed corporate America to see which companies have the highest incidence of ID theft. The No. 1 company? Bank of America. BoA is the nation's second largest bank. (If you look at the numbers based on total customer base, BoA then actually comes in second behind HSBC). AT&T occupies the second slot, followed by Sprint (No. 3), JPMorgan Chase (No. 4) and Capital One (No. 5). Think about it: 3 of the first 5 are banks, which is understandable. But why are two phone companies way up there? The reason is because they do a credit check when you apply for phone service, and open yourself up as a potential target when they get your info. In the No. 6 spot, we have Citibank. As the nation's largest bank, Citibank has one-third less incidences of ID theft than the smaller BoA! Verizon, American Express, Washington Mutual and Wells-Fargo all round out the top ten. View the complete list online at the Berkeley site.

Now the inevitable question: Why do these institutions have high rates of ID theft? Clark speculates that it must have to do with the way they internally handle your information. Interestingly, the bank with the lowest incidence of ID theft is ING Direct. You would think they'd be up at the top of the list since they're Internet only. But being a newer bank, they've been dealing with outsmarting ID thieves since they launched. It's much tougher for a legacy financial institution to retroactively patch good protection into systems that were built decades ago. ID theft has not grown significantly -- it still happens to about 10 million people a year -- but it's still a major issue. Finally, from the "no they didn't!" category, the New York City Department of Finance sent tax forms to 1000s that showed people's Social Security numbers through the envelope. C'mon people, this is 2008! Get with the program.

Vanguard took in more than $76 billion in deposits and crossed the $1 trillion mark in total assets during the past year. That's more money than Doctor Evil can get his arms around! Clark has long been a Vanguard fan. They're probably the world's largest cooperative; when you invest with them, you become a part owner of the company. All the money that normally goes out to traditional shareholders instead comes back to you in the form of expenses that are one-tenth lower than some competitors. Clark would love for you to look at them if you want to open a Roth account or have a 401(k) rollover from a former employer. Vanguard is self-serve, which means you must make your own decisions about what to do with your money. If you still want to use a commissioned person, the American Funds family is your best bet. Though their fees are substantially higher than Vanguard, they're still less than most other commission-based places. If you make more than $100K/year, consider putting your idle cash in a municipal bond fund, also available through Vanguard.

Other no-commission companies Clark likes include T. Rowe Price and Fidelity Investments. They both have fund managers who select mutual fund investments for you. Vanguard's specialty, meanwhile, is index funds where you buy slices and dices of many companies, like a Total Stock Market Index. Regardless of where you invest, you should consider putting a portion of your money in foreign capitalist markets. There are both established international funds and emerging market funds available -- known as BRIC investing (Brazil, Russia, India, China). Clark has not gone down the traditional BRIC road, but he has put 5% of his stock holdings in other third world countries. Fidelity, meanwhile, allows you to own the world in one purchase. Their 4-in-1 fund owns big companies, small companies, international companies and bonds. So if you don't want to think too much, this is simple one-stop shopping where you can put your money.

One caveat: Most of the investing world thrives on trying to use confusing language that impresses and intimidates. The goal is to make you feel incapable of making basic investment decisions. But Clark is all about trying to make things clear for you. Sometimes he succeeds, and other times he doesn't. Yet the first thing to do is spend less than what you make. There's no investing if there's no money left from your paycheck at the end of the day. That's the great American challenge right now.

Right now there's uproar as people look for a conspiracy involving the heightened gas prices. What's really going on? Well, the oil companies are making a profit…and when did it become illegal in this country to do that? The real conspiracy is us and the amount of driving we're doing and the amount of oil we're using. But that's only part of the story. The bigger issue is that our U.S. dollar is no longer the world's preferred currency. It's a 62-cent weakling versus the Euro. Today there are stores in New York that accept European and Canadian currency. Our dollar is stinking it up, and that's part of the reason why the price of a barrel of oil is so much higher. So what's the solution? Well, in the short term, we've got to do the opposite of what the Federal Reserve is doing when it lowers interest rates. The Fed's moves have only signaled to the rest of the world that we don't care about inflation. In the long run, however, we'll need fewer horses under the hoods of our cars, more hybrid vehicles and more smart diesels. Clark knows everybody looks for the enemy at Big Oil. But the reality is that our demand is driving what we pay.

Meanwhile, Clark is broadcasting outdoors today on the porch of the first completed house of this year's Habitat for Humanity build. This year Clark was able to build his 30th house with your help. The 2008 houses will all be dedicated tomorrow on Saturday, March 1. Clark's history with Habitat goes back to 1996. That was the year he first began sponsoring houses and building alongside listeners. In just 7 days of builds, volunteers go from cinder blocks to completed houses that become homes to working families. The future homeowners participate in the process through sweat equity. Atlanta Habitat for Humanity requires them to undertake 250 hours of volunteer labor; 1 year of classes on how to handle money; and for the first year they actually live in the homes as renters. After 12 months of on-time payments, they have a retroactive closing and the payments are applied towards their 0% interest mortgage. Clark loves that this program is a hand up, not a hand out, and that he can help build a house that will become a home.

Clark's executive producer Christa is walking on air because the penny-pinching guru recently converted their company cell phone plan to unlimited minutes. No longer will Clark and Christa have to fool around with 2 phones -- they used to carry one with unlimited minutes for local calling and another with a leash of minutes for all other calls. Clark decided to go with a Verizon plan that includes web surfing, texting, IM, music, e-mail, GPS and TV capabilities all for a flat rate! As a self-proclaimed flake, Christa says she's excited that she now only has to hold on to one phone.