It’s National Consumer Protection Week, so a great time to highlight our lesson “Scams, Fraud and Identity Theft.”

Given the increasing prevalence of identity theft and other financial scams facilitated by the internet, we believe this is an integral lesson to increase student savviness.  The lesson exposes students to the most popular financial scams and engages students with a group project where they become a “scam expert” and recommend steps to avoid falling victim to their specific scam.  Other concepts covered in the lesson:

• Learn the consequences of identity theft and how to recover if you have been victimized
• Ways to protect yourself from credit card debt
• Protecting yourself from email phishing expeditions
• Conducting mobile banking in a secure and safe way
• Creating passwords that protect your digital assets

I had a student come up to me last Saturday at the FBLA conference in Daly City and tell me how her family and friends were victimized by a Ponzi scheme.  By educating students about the telltale signs of a financial scam, hopefully they will be able to protect themselves, their family and friends.

About the Author

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.

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