Robert Neubecker

In this weekend’s Your Money column, I look at the question of whether United States consumers are vulnerable to the sort of phone shenanigans that tabloid reporters in Britain seem to have been engaged in for some time.

Whatever the methods used there, it’s becoming increasingly clear that people in United States are vulnerable to something called caller ID spoofing. In essence, someone uses a service to make it appear that a call is coming from your phone number. The column explains how the process might be (pretty easily) used to listen to your voice mail or find out what you’ve spent (and where) on your Bank of America or Chase credit cards.

The moral of the week’s reporting efforts for me? I’m no longer throwing out credit card receipts and will be shredding them instead. And I’m going to be much more careful about what I leave in people’s voice-mail boxes.

How about you?

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=43bec1fe1422b82f40086cf961a8f6b8