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Before You Leave for Vacation . . .

Confirm travel arrangements. Check. Find someone to water the plants. Check. Make sure sunscreen bottle fits in a plastic baggie. Check. Protect identity and credit score?

Adding this last item to your summer vacation to-do list may reduce the likelihood of someone stealing your identity, or dinging your credit score, while you’re away. Credit scores should be out of site and out of mind once you’re on vacation – but you don’t want to return home to the headaches and expenses incurred by a damaged one.

Here are a few safeguards you can put into place before you leave:

Ask someone to pick up your mail while you’re gone. A full mailbox is a treasure trove for identity thieves. “One of the biggest methods of capturing consumer information is getting it out of the garbage or mailbox,” says credit expert John Ulzheimer. Request the post office to stop service or arrange for a friend to empty your mailbox so that it’s not brimming with your personal information.

Empty your wallet. Take your social security card out of your wallet. Don’t put it back in when you get home. There’s no reason to carry this card with you. Lock it up in a special place at home or at the bank. If you have multiple credit cards, leave a few at home.

Scan and email yourself images of your wallet’s remaining contents, and your passport if you’re traveling outside the country. “Scan everything you take with you, including your credit card contact information,” says Scott Mitic, the CEO of TrustedID, an identity theft protection company. That way, you can easily cancel cards if your wallet is stolen and you won’t be stranded without identification. Emailing yourself copies is safer than carrying a hard copy of this information with you. Don’t check this email account on a public computer though. You don’t want to risk giving other people access to it.

Prepare your laptop for the trip. If you’re bringing your laptop, make sure its anti-spyware and anti-virus software is up-to-date. It’s also a good idea to erase the passwords you save in your internet browser (to email, online bank accounts, etc.) just in case the unthinkable happens and someone steals your computer. Creative thieves can find their way inside your computer’s hard drive even if your computer is locked with a password, says FiLife’s lead Information Technology Engineer Ezra Mound. So keep a close eye on it!

Set up automatic bill payments before you go. You don’t want to think about bills while lounging on the beach. Set up automatic bill pay so that your payments are made on time and there’s no chance creditors will hike your rates or tattle to the credit bureau while you’re away.

And, if you really want to bullet-proof your credit, you can put a security freeze on your credit report. “If you’re really concerned about your credit then I would freeze (it). Then you’ve essentially taken yourself out of the system until you’re ready to enter the game,” says Ulzheimer. But a credit score freeze comes with a small fee and the hassle of contacting all three credit bureaus. Ulzheimer skips the freeze; instead, he checks his credit report frequently in an effort to minimize his risk.

“Thieves are opportunistic,” Ulzheimer says. “They’re going to find the lowest hanging fruit. If you use a paper shredder then they’ll move next door to your neighbor’s house.”

Make sure your mailbox is less than full than your neighbor’s box? Check.

-Kristen Sullivan

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