Holiday identity theft risks

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Story Published: Dec 21, 2007 at 10:55 AM PST

By Laura Rillos

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While searching for the perfect Christmas gift--how often do you put your purse down to pick up a sweater or shirt?

Once is enough for identity thieves, who are browsing stores for distracted shoppers.

"In a busy store, these thieves will target people," explained Detective Steve Wiliams, who is with the Eugene Police Department's Financial Crimes Unit. "They'll watch to see who's not paying attention to the purse in shopping cart. They'll walk away for a minute and the next thing they know the purse is gone or the wallet is gone out of the purse."

Take a bit of distraction, throw in bigger crowds and holiday hustle--and you've got a recipe for easy identity theft.

The criminals know it.

Det. Williams says identity thieves will sometimes patrol mall parking lots--watching for people who take their purchases and purses out to their vehicle and return to the mall to continue shopping.

Camee Southey, the security supervisor at Valley River Center, says it's smarter to split up your shopping trips.

"If you're going to go out to your vehicle, the best thing to do is come in and shop one time, then actually leave the mall."

Shoppers aren't the only ones making mistakes. Busy retails workers, overwhelmed by long lines, can sometimes skip security measures.

"Even if machine says show it to clerk, or cashier and show ID, they won't ask for it, because they've got so many people cycling through," said Det. Williams. "Thieves will take advantage of that."

To safeguard yourself, Det. Williams says stay aware of your surroundings, take the bare minimum with you--just one credit card and one debit card per shopping trip, and unless you're swiping your debit card yourself, use credit."

"If that card is going to be used by someone else, if it's going to walk away from you and be used by someone else, I would use a credit card because you're going to have protections with credit card," he said.

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