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Keeping Your Personal Information Personal

By: Larry Goldberg

Once those student credit card companies actually learn who you are, it seems like the entire bulk mailing world finds your name and address. Instead of the weekly mail just including a check from home, suddenly it includes things like advertisements for replacement windows and new car loans. Moreover, you may find those advertisements extended to annoying phone calls and spam e-mails. You want great student credit card offers, but is a little privacy too much to ask for?

 

Reading Privacy Policies

One of the first things you can do is read the privacy policy of every single company you do business with – online and offline. Many companies choose to share information with other companies, and there are ways you can opt out of that information sharing. If you don’t like their policy, either ask for alternatives or choose a different company to do business with.

 

Making Wise Choices

Giving your name, address, and phone number to just anyone isn’t as great an idea as you may think. Sure, you could fill out six hundred applications for a free cruise from a company you’ve never heard of, but the chances are good that not only will you not win a free cruise, you may also get lots of junk solicitations because you chose to offer your name and address to a company you knew nothing about. This is true of websites as well. The more often you reveal your name and e-mail address, the more often you are likely to have your name sold to marketing companies around the world.

 

Lose Those Lists

If you’re currently on any online mailing lists, you may want to consider removing your name if the junk mail is getting too thick. As with other places, those lists can be sold to lots of different companies, thus improving your chances of a lot of junk mail.

 

Protect Your Accounts

One of the most important things you can do is to protect your student credit card accounts with both a password and a security question. The bottom line is that your personal information being shared doesn’t just mean lots of extra junk mail, in some cases, it means your account numbers going out to very dangerous companies, and if you want to ensure that your accounts keep others out, pick a great password and a hard to guess security question answer.

 

Just to make sure nobody has gotten a hold of increasingly sensitive information like credit card accounts, be sure to check your credit report at least twice a year. It will help you find any accounts that you didn’t open and correct any mistakes. Moreover, if you’re sick of those junk phone calls, trying getting on the federal no-call list or a similar version within your state of residence. While it won’t keep all solicitors from calling you, it’s certain to help with some of them.

 

Keeping your private information private doesn’t mean that you have to lose the chance for great credit card offers. It does, though, mean you should be a little more careful every day.

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