How this woman tracked down her identity thief-By Mandi Woodruff

When Jessamyn Lovell’s wallet went missing at an art gallery in 2009, she took all the right precautions. She canceled all of her credit cards and put a fraud alert on her credit report to prevent anyone taking out new lines of credit under her name.

Despite these efforts, a year and a half later, Lovell, 38, received a phone call from a police officer who had strange news: A woman in San Francisco had been arrested for using Lovell’s driver’s license to check into a swanky hotel. Lovell recently recounted her story on NPR’s This American Life. She had gotten a new license but, knowing a potential identity thief would need her Social Security number as well to really wreak havoc, Lovell hadn’t considered reporting her old license stolen.
“I just sort of thought, well, that’s annoying,” says Lovell, an artist and professor who lives in Albuquerque, N.M. “I didn’t think much else of it until I started getting a flood of bills.”
The bills included several unpaid parking tickets and thousands of dollars worth of charges for three rental cars she had no recollection of ever purchasing. Soon after the bills started coming, she received a summons from a San Francisco court to answer to a theft charge from a supermarket.
She grudgingly spent $700 on airfare and showed up on her scheduled court date, with a police report in hand showing that her license had been stolen and used by another woman. The judge agreed to dismiss the charges, but Lovell found she wasn’t ready to let it go.
“That’s when, for me, it kind of started to all become like an investigation,” she says. At the time, Lovell, a professional photographer, had been taking photographs for a series on socioeconomic class and how it impacts an individual’s identity.  Suddenly, piecing together the identity of the woman was who had caused her so much grief became “like a full-time job,” she says.
With help from private investigators and her own amateur detective skills, Lovell did manage to find the perpetrator — a woman named Erin Hart. She tracked her down to a local police precinct in San Francisco, where Hart was being released following an unrelated arrest. She followed her for a few hours, snapping photos covertly, but never introduced herself.
Seeing Hart in the flesh wasn’t quite as satisfying as she had hoped it might be, Lovell says. Hart was clearly not financially stable. When Lovell later found her probation officer, the officer revealed that Hart was and, as of December 2014, is homeless. Hart hasn’t responded to any of Lovell’s letters or requests to speak sent through her probation officer. Still, Lovell knew she wanted to share her story and the repercussions of Hart’s actions.

She compiled the entire paper trail  — all the past due car rental bills, all of her court documents, her police report, and her photos of Hart — and turned it into a traveling art exhibit. The exhibit, currently running in a San Francisco art gallery, was converted into a book, “Dear Erin Hart,”  which went on sale this month.
“It's almost as if she is part of my life and I know that sounds a little creepy and I'm sorry to her in a way for dragging it out, because my original intention was not to make a public spectacle of her. ” Lovell says. “ I wanted to sort of take back something that was taken from me… This woman wasn’t me. She was a separate person from me.”
“Expunging a criminal record is a nightmare."
Financially, Lovell was able to save her credit from much damage. She was quick to contact the car rental agency and dispute the charges. It took about nine months for them to finally back off.  
“If she would have not paid the rental car charges, [the agencies] could have sent the receivables to collections and that certainly would have ended up on her credit reports,” says John Ulzheimer, credit expert at CreditSesame.com. If enough time passed, the agency could have sued her. And her credit score could have taken a big hit.
Ulzheimer recommends always erring on the safe side when you suspect a piece of your identity has been stolen, be it a driver’s license, Social Security number or a credit card.
Like Lovell, you can easily place a fraud alert on your credit reports from the main three bureaus, which will prevent any new accounts from being opened in your name. Alerts last for 90 days, but you can extend them if you submit proof that you’ve filed a police report.

Neal O’Farrell, founder of the Identity Theft Council, a nonprofit organization that helps victims of ID theft,  says losing a license is a particularly annoying situation. Most DMVs don’t make it easy to simply walk in and cancel an old license without a police report. And police won’t necessarily allow you to file a report simply because your license has gone missing — you typically have to prove that your identity has been stolen and has been used by another person illegally first. In Lovell’s case, she was lucky that Hart got herself arrested while impersonating her and that police were savvy enough to figure out Hart was using another person’s ID. Some crooks use other people’s licenses like a “get out of jail free” card (for example, passing a stolen or fake ID to an officer when they’re stopped for a speeding ticket) and innocent people wind up answering for crimes they never committed.

“Expunging a criminal record is a nightmare,” O’Farrell says. “It’s an easy crime to fall into but it can take years to get out of.”  

The Identity Theft Council and the Identity Theft Resource Center are both great (and free) tools for consumers who think they are victims of ID theft. 

Culled from Yahoo Finance

Managing Your Pension Pot Effectively-Odunze Reginald C

Image credited to yourpension.org

Tom Macphail in an article captioned “10 costly Pension Mistakes” noted that “If you have a pension, have you ever reviewed it? Millions of people haven't. Moreover, recent research revealed more than two in five adults (41%) - 8 million people - cannot remember how their pensions are invested. Why is that alarming? Performance can vary quite dramatically across investments and even a seemingly small difference could have a significant impact on the size of your pot”

Continuing he stated “that these are just projections. Investments will not always go up in value, they also go down, so you could get back less than you invested; what is certain is that they won't perform as predicted. Also, these values are in today's terms, without considering inflation, which will reduce the spending power of your money over time “

Macphail concluded that “Therefore checking your pension pot is very essential in avoiding mistakes”.

And according to Walter Updegrave in an article captioned “Three Little mistakes that can sink your retirement, which appeared in Yahoo Finance it states that “It’s almost become a cliché. Virtually every survey asking pre-retirees what they plan to do in retirement shows that the overwhelming majority plan to work.

Indeed, a recent Merrill Lynch survey found that nearly three out of four people over 50 said their ideal retirement would include working. Which is fine. Staying connected to the work world in some way can not only offer financial benefits, it can also keep retirees more active and socially engaged.

How then do you increased your pension pot, experience has shown that majority do not realize the importance of the pension pot until a year to their retirement when they suddenly realized that the total savings could not carry them through. 

The best approach is to use the pension calculator, contributors should make it as a duty to check their pension pot from their Pension Fund Administrators or they make online pension calculator which has in built mechanism capable of calculating the contributor’s likely expected values and returns based on a projected contribution and an expected income.

Revealed: The no. 1 city to find a job

Thinkstock

When launching a company, you want to go where the opportunities are – and it turns out the best place to get started might not be where you think, according to a new ranking from career database Glassdoor.
Overseen by the company's chief economist Dr. Andrew Chamberlain, the job site conducted its first 25 Best Cities for Jobs survey. Raleigh, N.C. is No. 1 on the list followed by Kansas City, MO. and Oklahoma City.
Three elements were brought in to determine the final ranking: hiring opportunity (the ratio of job openings to the population), cost of living and job satisfaction. The satisfaction ratings were drawn from the employer reviews on the site over the last year, which includes a satisfaction scale of 1-5.

Chamberlain said he found the cities that topped the list tended to fall into two categories -- growing mid-size tech hubs like Raleigh, N.C.; Austin, Texas; and Seattle and former industrial cities that have made the transition into being more service-oriented cities like Kansas City, MO.; Louisville, Ky.; and Oklahoma City. While the tech industry certainly made its presence felt in the ranking, he also noted opportunities for jobs in project management, accounting, telecom and healthcare were prevalent.
Looking ahead Chamberlain says "whatever industry is having a boom in that particular year that will shoot them way up in the rankings." For example had the ranking come out two years ago, Chamberlain noted that a city in North Dakota might have been at the top because of the fracking boom during that time -- but that would not be the case today because of falling oil prices.

As for what business owners can take away from the list, Chamberlain says they should to look out for locations that offer affordable housing stock, appealing amenities for families and proximity to institutes of higher learning.

"[Business owners] might want to take a second look at some smaller and mid-size cities in America as good places to start a company, that they might have overlooked in the past…these can be great places to start a business because they offer relatively low overhead and a steady stream of skilled workers coming out of the universities."

Culled from The Entrepreneur

Retirement: How not to go broke before you die-Aubrey Cohen, NerdWallet

(Photo: Thinkstock)

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You've spent a lifetime saving for and dreaming about a retirement perhaps filled with travel, volunteering or spending more time with family.
But as you consider your next chapter, you also have to make sure your nest egg lasts for the rest of your life.
By considering some basic investment rules and creating a detailed plan to handle everyday expenses and emergencies, you can make your retirement more comfortable and secure.
Rules of thumb
Some rules of thumb can help guide retirement thinking, providing a relatively simple answer to a complicated calculation. One well-known guideline holds that you should be able to withdraw 4% of your portfolio every year and still have money to spare when you die.
A recent research note from T. Rowe Price validated that conventional wisdom -- in part. The investment firm showed that an investment portfolio with almost any mix of stocks and bonds would survive a 20-year retirement with an initial withdrawal of 4% per year, increasing the amount by 3% a year for inflation, and probably would last 20 years even with a 5% initial withdrawal.
But people are living longer these days, and that raises the risk of running out of savings. A portfolio consisting of 60% stocks and 40% bonds stands an 80% chance of lasting 30 years with an initial withdrawal of 4% and just a 46% likelihood of lasting that long starting at 5%, T. Rowe Price reported. (The simulation estimated 8% annual return for stocks and 4.4% to 5.3% for bonds).
Another approach is to figure out how much you need to spend and see if you can afford that amount. Guy Baker, a financial advisor based in Irvine, California, says retirees should expect to spend 80% to 90% of what they brought home when they worked. Social Security and pension income (if you have it) would cover part of this. The remainder, multiplied by how long you expect to be retired, is up to you.
Patricia Jennerjohn, a financial planner based in Oakland, California, cautions that spending often doesn't decline, at least at the start of retirement.
"You shouldn't expect to spend less. You should expect to spend differently," she advises. "Certain things, like wardrobe and commuting expenses, will probably be replaced by things you want to have fun on."
A close look at spending
Jennerjohn has clients start by figuring out fixed expenses, such housing, utilities and insurance. These are fixed in that you don't have a choice whether to pay them, but they will change, going up with inflation or down with the payoff of a mortgage.
Clients then look at discretionary spending, including things you'd like to have and do, like cable TV and travel, and other items, like food, where you have wide latitude about how much you spend.
"That gives you an idea of the part of spending that you can control to some extent," Jennerjohn says.
A huge part of figuring out how much you are going to spend in retirement, of course, is having an idea of how long you will live. These days, we're living longer than ever.
Jennerjohn usually starts with a lifespan of 90 and cautions against going much below that.
"I don't like people to plan for an early demise," she says.
The Social Security Administration has a basic life-expectancy calculator. Others, such as this one from Northwestern Mutual, get into more detail about your health and lifestyle.
Income
The exercise above can lead to a truly frightening number. Now what?
First, the amount of money you need in retirement is why experts keep talking about the need to start saving early. Starting early gives you longer to save and gives your money more time to earn compound interest, or interest on the interest you've already earned.
People generally need to save around 10% of their gross income if they start at 25, 15% starting at 35 and 20% starting at 40, according to Baker. "The longer they wait, the more they're going to have to put into retirement from their own income."
Even if you do everything right, you're unlikely to have all the money you'll need for retirement the day you stop working. You'll have to keep much of your savings planted in investments that earn more than the rate of inflation.
Remember the 4% rule of thumb? Financial planner William Bengen, who calculated that two decades ago, actually started with a 4.5% withdrawal, and assumed retirees would keep 53% of their savings in stocks and the rest in government bonds,
The T. Rowe Price study concluded that a more aggressive portfolio of 60% or even 80% stocks actually raises the odds that your money will last as long as you do. Or put another way, keeping your money in "safe," low-yield investments increases the risk that you'll run out of money before you die.
"You have to get the long-term growth of the market," Jennerjohn says. She adds that many advisors recommend having one to three years' worth of expenses in cash or cash equivalents to help ride out market downturns.
What is retirement, anyway?
Financial planners talk about the "go-go," "go-slow" and ultimately the "no-go" phases of retirement, as people travel the world, cut back and then stay put. The "go-go" years tend to cost more than later phases, although medical costs often spike in later years.
These days, many people don't want to collect their gold watch and immediately board a cruise ship. Instead, they're continuing to work part-time or even going back to school and launching second careers, such as moving from high-powered executive to teacher, according to Jennerjohn. "That's going to make it possible for people to kind of glide into not working, rather than drop into not working."
No matter how old you are, how much you've saved or what kind of sunset you have in mind, the biggest retirement mistake you can make is not planning for it. Now is better than later, or never.


Culled from US Today