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One of my readers wrote to me the other day mentioning how she had noticed a significant increase in her spam emails, as well as telemarketing calls since she started signing up for freebies and surveys. This led me to the realization that I haven’t addressed this serious issue on my blog, and I wanted to make sure that everyone is fully informed on this important matter.
If you’ve been on the Internet for a while, it’s easy to fall under the mistaken impression that your personal information is secure. Companies generally post their privacy policies on their websites,and will tell you that your information is safe; however, in reality this is still not always the case.
For this very reason, it’s important to be very selective about what personal information you divulge when signing up for freebies and surveys. I would recommend having a “junk” email address that is used only for this purpose. Signing up for a free Hotmail, Gmail, or Yahoo! email address takes just a few minutes and will protect your personal email address from being bombarded with spam.
Also, I never give out my real home phone number unless I am absolutely sure that it is necessary, which in most cases it is not. Furthermore, if you haven’t registered for the National Do Not Call Registry, now would be an excellent time to do so! In case you didn’t know, you can register cell phones as well.
Some people go so far as to open a PO Box at the Post Office just for freebie purposes, but I haven’t gone to that length yet. Other areas to be selective about are birth date fields, as well as giving out information about your children. And please, never ever give out your Social Security Number on a form or by email.
As always, use your best judgment. If it doesn’t feel right, don’t do it. I try to only post legitimate freebies that are not trying to harvest your information, but you just never know what even large corporations are doing with it. And we’ve all heard the horror stories about databases being hacked.
You’re your own best defense against misuse of your personal information, so empower yourself with these tips!
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Great tips. It is important to be careful with your information.
Great tips. I wanted to let you know that I nomintated you for an award. I just posted the details on PPP. You have a great site, thank you for sharing such great tips! :o)
Thanks for the tips! I am new to this whole on-line coupon thing and trying to get some good deals, but at the same time not get tons of spam or worse. I noticed when signing up for shortcuts, they asked for date of birth. What is the purpose of this and has anyone had trouble? I also requested the free tote from a link I saw here, but they asked for phone # and email? Weird, my husband hates me doing all this stuff because he thinks its more trouble than its worth. I don’t want to prove him right. Has anyone noticed any problems after signing up on mulitple sites?
Thanks!
I pay close attention to what fields are REQUIRED and which aren’t. If it’s not required, I don’t put any information in there.
If it is required, I 99.5% of the time put in a fake phone number and use my back up e-mail address.
I don’t care so much about my DOB, what are they going to do with it?
I usually give my real info and have not had any problems. My husband appreciated the value more after I took him coupon shopping and we only got things for him! ;)
All great advice, but additionally, when a lot of these places ask for birthdate information and you try to leve it blank, they won’t let you continue. So, I have created a birthdate I use that is literally, the day, month, and year before my actual birthdate. I won’t forget it that way, but don’t have to give out my actual info.