Shredders in the kitchen and other useful tips

Sure, we're always writing about identity theft, but it's almost National Consumer Protection week (during the week of March 2-8), and so I figured I ought to check in with fraud prevention expert Judd Rousseau, COO of Identity Theft 911, and see if he has any useful information on protecting oneself. And what do you know? He does. Rousseau offers these five tips for avoiding having your identity stolen, and you know, they're pretty interesting:

If you have one shredder, it belongs in your -- kitchen? Yep. A Staples study found that most junk mail ends up in the kitchen trash, not in the office.

Don't pay money to get money. According to Rousseau, the most common scams right now involve asking consumers to wire money for complex, convoluted and even occasionally believable reasons, and for the consumer's trouble, they will, of course, get a much larger amount in return.