Election season is heating up and a lot of Americans who have never seen a ballot box are finally registering to have their vote counted.  Unfortunately, during election season, we often see voters become victims of identity theft.  The most unfortunate part is if the voter isn't paying attention, it could be years before the fraud is even discovered.

Here's how the con works.  A very savvy and articulate con artist will call you posing as the voter registrar's office.  They will say they are confirming information in their database and ask if you are the individual by your name who has registered to vote.  They will then ask you to confirm your address, birthday and social security number.  This is the key information required to establish credit in your name to get, oh let's say a cell phone or even a credit card.  If the con person uses your social security number with another address, you may never even get the notices that you have defaulted on the account in your name.  Rest assured, the affected companies will report "your" bad debt, affecting your credit rating, but how will you know?

Well, this happened to me.  And it was before the FTC made a free annual credit report mandatory without penalty.  I didn't check my credit on a regular basis, and I did not find out until four years after the crime was committed that someone had used my social security number, which they had stolen from my employer, to lease cell phones and default on the bill.  I discovered my bad credit when I attempted to refinance my house.  I tried, in vain, to contact the cell phone companies and a department store to let them know the debt was not mine.  They did not want to hear my story; they only wanted a police report.  So, I took the time off work and went down to the station and filed a report.  Once I provided that to the defrauded companies, they corrected my credit report.  It took numerous letters and 1/2 day off work so yes, it was a pain.  For one company I had to provide three forms of proof that I did not live in Atlanta four years ago.  It sounds easy, but it wasn't.  Could you do it?  Do you save your bills for four years?

The bigger question is, have you looked at your credit report lately?  How about your kids’?  Sadly, a family member is the number one identity thief and more and more children are having their credit affected by desperate family members.  Do yourself a favor.  Check out the family's credit today at www.annualcreditreport.com.  It’s safe, quick and easy.  If you find a problem, report it.  And if the voter registrar's office calls asking for your social security number (not just the last four digits, which they will sometimes do,) don't hesitate to hang up.

Listening to Warren Buffet speak on PBS last week, I related to his visual description of the state of our economy.  The US economy is a stellar athlete, and that athlete just hit the floor.  He is strong enough to survive, indeed strong enough to heal relatively quickly, but it is up to us to revive him and get him off the floor.  That is our priority now.

Mr. Buffet's description is striking to me because I believe the events causing the athlete to "hit the floor" as he has described it have occurred in the past few months.  Let me get to the "striking" part.  The BBB just finished its second annual survey of American's trust in the companies we do business with.  We found that in the past year, consumer trust has declined 14 points on average.  Keep in mind that this survey was done April 07 to April 08.  Therefore, what "strikes" me is how much has trust in business continued to erode now that Americans are aware of the condition of our star athlete?  I suspect a significant amount.

It is this set of unfortunate circumstances that tends to significantly increase what I call "trust equity."  That is, how important and valuable trust is becoming in the relationship between a business and its customer.  At the very least, this economic environment will cause people to become wary and skeptical.  At the very worst, it brings out a litany of con artists posing as the FDIC to conduct identity fraud, or posing as a concerned lending consultant to strip struggling consumers of what little they have left.  Now more than ever, it's important that we know the reputation of the company taking our valuable dollars.

Can you trust the companies you do business with?  Well, you can certainly get a better sense of their reputation by checking them out at bbb.org.  If they've been around awhile, they probably know how to weather this kind of storm.  If they have a few RESOLVED complaints, they probably care enough about their customers to work through issues when they arise.  Do remember to take the size of business into consideration when you are evaluating the volume of complaints.  Remember, there is only one sure way to a complaint-free report: if the company has no customers.  There are bad consumers just like there are bad businesses, and we can't prevent them from filing a complaint.  So the key is ... whether or not the company has resolved the complaint.

Track records of trust are more important than ever.  If you have one, shout about it from the mountain tops.  If you are getting ready to put your money anywhere, allow the BBB to help you be cautiously responsible.  Check the company out and see how they're doing today.  Warren Buffet says, "Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful."  There are a lot of opportunities out there, and taking advantage of them now will keep our economy headed in the right direction.  Happy shopping!