MANY OF US HAVE little more than a weak, reused password standing between our financial assets and a remote attacker—one armed with powerful tools and a database of passwords from security breaches. This is a losing battle. It’s the most likely way for weak computer security to put our finances at risk.
Think this can’t happen to you? I’ll bet you have at least one password taken in a big security breach. A quick way to find out is entering your email address at Troy Hunt’s HaveIBeenPwned site.

THE LETTER WAS IN a mountain of mail delivered the day after my wife and I returned from holiday. “Dear David Powell, Thank you for your recent application for a Bed Bath & Beyond Mastercard account. Your request… was carefully considered, and we did not approve your application….”
I’ve never been happier to receive a rejection.
We use exactly one credit card, pay it off each month and have never applied for another. This fraudulent application,

WANT TO SEE THE VERY worst of human nature? Look no further than financial salespeople—and the way they exploit their clients.
Incentives drive their behavior. High commissions make brokers and insurance agents do unconscionable things. The worst products contain the highest payouts. Result? Consider seven real-life examples. Names are withheld to protect the innocent and, unfortunately, also the guilty.

A widowed nurse inherited her husband’s $1 million IRA. An unscrupulous insurance salesperson convinced her to put the funds into a high-cost variable annuity.

“UNCLE” PHAN, MY father’s closest friend and my godfather, committed suicide a few years ago. I regret not seeing him often enough when he was alive and not letting him know how much I appreciated his humor and generosity.
I also regret not knowing his financial and emotional situation.
Uncle Phan retired as a surgeon 20 years ago and took a lump sum distribution instead of a lifetime monthly pension. It should have been enough to last the rest of his life,

MANY FINANCIAL advisors are allowed to recommend investments that are great moneymakers for their own retirement—but not so good for those who buy them.
These salespeople are incentivized to push clients into investments that pay the highest commissions. It’s a system that jeopardizes the retirement of millions of Americans. Billions are spent annually on unnecessary fees. While the industry has many decent people, the sinners outnumber the saints. Here are just seven of their transgressions:

Variable annuities in retirement accounts.

PUBLIC SCHOOL teachers’ biggest problem isn’t rowdy students. Instead, it’s their retirement plans that should be sent to the dean’s office.
After leaving my job as a foreign currency trader for an international bank, I became a middle school history teacher. My teaching career lasted more than 20 years. One of the worst things I encountered was the state of public school teachers’ non-ERISA 403(b) plans.
Having a front-row seat to the carnage was not pretty.

ERIC SCHMIDT SAID this when he was Google’s chief executive: “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”
In his Congressional testimony last week, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg didn’t say anything nearly as condescending or abrasive. But his testimony was a good reminder that we’re in a very different world privacy-wise than we were even 10 years ago,

A MEDIA-SAVVY IRS often announces that one of its top priorities is combatting criminals who steal tax-related information. The good news: Reports of tax identity theft have declined markedly in recent years. The bad news: Resourceful identity thieves remain active and constantly introduce new schemes.
One consistently remunerative ploy is to use stolen Social Security numbers and other information to file fraudulent tax returns that claim hefty refunds—claims that generally are submitted at the start of the filing season.

THERE’S A NEW TYPE of financial fraud on the rise: tax refund theft. All an identify thief needs are an individual’s name and Social Security number. This information, unfortunately, is readily available. In a single incident in 2017, thieves stole information on almost half of all Americans from credit reporting agency Equifax.
Using this information, thieves then prepare and file a fake tax return in such a way that it appears a large refund is due.

WHILE SITTING AT MY desk a few months ago, I received a text message from Citibank notifying me of “suspicious activity” on my primary credit card. I immediately logged onto my account and discovered someone that morning had attempted to use my credit card number at a luxury resort—one located several hundred miles from where I work. The charge had been denied, but the damage was done. I immediately cancelled the card. I also began notifying the companies I have automated payments with,

THE EQUIFAX DATA breach seems to be a tipping point, unleashing a barrage of articles—and a boatload of angst—about the security of personal information. What are the potential problems and what’s the best way to defend yourself? I got some great ideas from followers of my Facebook page, where I posted a draft of this article and asked for feedback.
It seems there are five key scenarios where hackers could potentially wreak havoc with your financial life.