An old bit of advice for folks who seem to have problems controlling their use of credit cards is to take all your cards, put 'em in a container of water, and freeze 'em. These days, what with all the online shopping that goes on, that kind of advice only goes so far. Still, and for entirely different reasons, it makes a lot of sense to put a freeze on your credit. Not your ability to use it but, rather, the ability of others to access your credit reports.
Freeze my credit? Why?
Truckers are especially susceptible to Identity Theft. For a number of reasons, not all of them related to using unsecured Wi-Fi hotspots, a lot of truckers lead a lifestyle that makes them an easier target for identity theft than others. If you're away from home for long periods of time, it's possible that mail, with personal information, can be stolen. If you're using your credit cards several times a day in various locations, you increase the risk that someone will steal that information. And the list goes on.
If your credit card number is compromised, and nothing else,
you're only on the hook for a small
amount of money; but if your identity is compromised, you could be
looking at the ruination of your credit, at a cost of thousands of
dollars, and years of work spent trying to recover your good name.
What happens when I freeze my credit?
You'll still be able to use all your credit cards in exactly the same way you always have. Credit cards, at least your current credit cards, aren't the focus of a credit freeze. I've had my credit card number, but not the card itself, stolen three times and, because the card issuing company has protections in place, it never cost me a dime. Freezing your credit won't deal with the simple loss of a credit card or number but, in general, identity theft isn't the goal of the average credit card thief.
By freezing your credit, you limit the ability of identity thieves to
open new credit accounts in your name. A credit freeze eliminates the access to your credit reports without your express permission. An identity thief won't know the password needed, by the credit bureau, to thaw your credit and, therefore, they'll be denied the ability to open a new credit account using your identity.
Okay - How do go about freezing my credit?
It's relatively easy to freeze your credit. The talk radio host and consumer advocate, Clark Howard, has a handy Credit Freeze Guide, that I used, to ease the process. Two of the credit reporting agencies, Trans Union and Experian, allow you to use online tools to freeze your credit while Equifax requires that you send them a certified letter, with documentation, to do so.
There's also, very likely, a small fee for freezing and thawing your credit. When I put a freeze on my credit it took me all of 20 minutes; and that included my trip to the post office to mail the certified letter required by Equifax.
Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) began being pushed out to those of us using Windows Automatic Update back on July 10. Considering the fact that I'd had no problems with SP2 I wasn't overly concerned about the possibility of this latest offering causing problems. As it turns out; I should have been. 
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I've always wanted to do a podcast. That might be because I'm prone to babble. Hopefully, though, you'll find this podcast to be a little bit more interesting and informative than a fifteen or twenty minute drone.
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