MoneyMinding Monitor

Thoughts on Financial Literacy

It’s more than just missed education…  listen here!

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Identity Theft Not Well Understood by the Income Tax Department

A short while ago, the income tax department called me – not exactly a call I was excited to get, but none-the-less I proceeded because it wasn’t a significant issue. On the other hand, however, their phone policies are the reason for this writing.

When I think about the way the call went, it’s rather unbelievable really – so much so that part of me doesn’t want to share the story for fear someone will use the information unscrupulously. But alas, I hope there are more people that will be on the alert by reading this message that it might help stop some unscrupulous fraudsters.

The agent called and gave me her first name and said she was calling from Canada Revenue Agency. As soon as I said “hello”, she immediately said she needed to confirm that she was indeed speaking to me and proceeded to ask me to give her personal information. What? They called me. Shouldn’t they give me some information and ask me to fill in the blanks or to give me something basic then ask me for more details? It started by her asking for my complete address, then my birth date and my social insurance number (Canadian Government ID number).

Wait a minute – “If you’re the government calling me, aren’t you supposed to have this information?” How about if you read off what you know and ask me to fill in the blanks like the name of my husband or something similar.

I was completely taken aback and suspicious so requested to call them back so I could be sure that it was really the government calling. It was – as I found out after working my way through the maze of voice mail options and taking 20 minutes to do so – just to have to explain to a completely different person that someone from their organization had called me about something, which I had no idea what. I was completely inconvenienced by having to prove to myself that the phone call I had received was legitimate! I was not happy – can you tell? Here we are, the government is telling us to be careful, yet they themselves are not setting a good example – what’s with that?!

This entire experience left me completely dumbfounded and hence the reason for sharing the story with others….I guess the moral is to be on the alert – it’s sad, but a reality that we need to double check our sources before giving out our personal information – even when the person sounds official. And, perhaps maybe someone should tell the government that this is a very poor example and that they need to revisit their phone policy immediately.

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What Your Pay Check Can Teach You About Money

I heard a very interesting story of a young person who deposited their first pay check and went home thinking there was an error because there was more money than she was expecting. When she first looked at the information, she interpreted the section on deductions to be the money that was to be deposited rather than the amount that was subtracted from the full or gross amount of the pay.

Of course, she was pleasantly surprised to find that the larger amount was hers to keep. However, this story is so significant to me because I frequently hear of companies wanting to have financial professionals come to help their young employees make investment decisions. The reality is that what they need is the simple, day-to-day education on simple basics – like how to interpret a pay check, how to set up bank accounts, how to spend money and how to track money coming in and money going out (income and expenses).

When you assume that a young person needs help picking mutual funds for their retirement, you also miss the key aspect of their more immediate needs – like housing, food, transportation and understanding of basic finances.

Reading a pay check is one of those things that is assumed, and one that can have a significant impact on current and long-term finances. I know another story where the medical deduction was missed from a pay check and rather than it being listed than left blank it simply did not appear anywhere on the pay stub. You can imagine the implications of expecting that you have your medical insurance covered because it has been deducted from your pay check in the past only to find out that it hadn’t been paid.

The employer told the employee that it was his responsibility to know that the medical insurance premium was not being deducted. Fortunately for this employee, his wife had a solid financial background and was able to find the right person in the organization to help straighten the situation around with only minor complications. However, if you don’t know what you don’t know, you won’t know until it’s too late that there has been an error, or that you’ve missed an opportunity, were misunderstood or are completely out of luck!

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