Smart Money Monday - Identity Thieves - Hawaii News Now - KGMB and KHNL

Smart Money Monday - Identity Thieves

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(HawaiiNewsNow) - 

Whether you're doing last minute shopping tonight or post Christmas shopping for all the savings, guard your wallet. We don't just mean don't spend too much money. We mean from thieves because they're not just looking for cash, they're looking for your identity. Eric Kawamoto joins us from Bank of Hawai'i this morning.

What are people doing with wallets? Not just taking the money at of it, right?

These thieves, some of them are just going after cash so when they steal your cash, they discard of your wallet and purse and throw it away. However, there are a few worst case scenarios where these thieves are actually out to spend your credit cards and possibly steal your identity.

So if you for some reason have an inkling that somebody stole your wallet, what do you do? What's the initial course of action.

If you feel that somebody has stolen your wallet, purse, information, file a police report right away and contact your bank or your credit card companies to notify them as well that your information has been sold.

What can you do to protect yourself in the first place to avoid that whole situation?

There are a few tips, so one is always know where your wallet is. For a man, keep the wallet in your pocket. For women that carry their information or money this their purse, close it if possible so if there's buttons or zippers, always has to closed.

I like to give my wallet to my wife but that's a different problem altogether. Any other tips?

 A few other tips would be especially in this holiday season when people are out shopping, when you make a purchase, try not to set down your wallet or purse on the side unattended because one, it's an opportunity for the pick pocketers to take your wallet, but two, you may possibly forget it if you leave it on the side. But a very important one that we really want to make sure that people understand is do not carry your social security card.  Because if a thief is after your identity that is one of the pieces of information they need.