Cheryl Baumgartner, Certified Identity Theft Risk Management Specialist

While it may seem unbelievable, identity thieves will be targeting holiday shoppers during the holidays.  What better time to slip a few bogus charges through than when you are doing all that hectic Christmas shopping?  Many people will have made so many different charges on their credit cards, what's one or two more?  This is prime time for thieves to strike your finances and credit.  There are a few things you can do to help protect yourself:

Check your account balances daily.  There are Federal protections in place in the U.S. that can limit your losses but they are time sensitive.  The sooner you discover fraudulent charges and mysterious withdrawals, the better.

Use your body to shield checks as you fill them out if you use paper.  A good Identity thief can memorize the necessary information on your check in 30 seconds!

Don't use any ATM machine that looks like it may have been tampered with.

Save your shopping receipts and compare them to your credit card statement immediately.

Dispute all unknown or fraudulent charges immediately with your bank or credit card company.

When in line to pay for your goods don't take your credit card out of your purse of wallet until the order is tallied and it is time to pay.  If you are holding it in your hand a thief can memorize the information from the front of your card in no time.

Most of all be aware of what is going on around you.  Keep an eye out for people that seem too interested.  We already cry enough after Christmas when we get our credit card bills, the last thing we want to do is pay for a thief's holiday shopping too!