When our personal data is left unprotected

WASHINGTON >> In the last few months, I have been hit several times by scammers. Someone hacked my online Target account and ordered an expensive camera that I had to return. One version of this involves sending something to your house and picking it up from your porch before you get there.

In a matter of seconds, crooks spent $200 on my credit card before I could freeze it. I also had to cancel a premium delivery service offered by UPS that an identity thief had signed up for in my name with the intention, I assume, of rerouting fraudulently purchased items.

I now have so many alerts set up on my various financial accounts that the notifications beeping all day make me feel like I’m in a cartoon episode of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. I don’t dare turn off my smartphone for fear of missing a beep that signals another attempt to compromise an account.

Then there are the constant telephone calls from con artists with just enough of my personal information to make their schemes to steal my money seem believable. I can’t answer the phone anymore without first checking the caller ID, and even then it’s possible that scammers have spoofed the telephone number from a legitimate government agency or business that I have a relationship with.

Criminals often gain access to our personal information because companies fail to protect their databases.

When there’s a major breach, consumers usually get a year’s worth of free credit monitoring. It’s something, but it’s not sufficient to fix the issue, because the notices you get as part of a monitoring service are after the fact — that is, after something suspicious or fraudulent may have occurred.

At least some of the redresses are getting better even if they still fall short of complete protection. Last week, the Federal Trade Commission announced a deal with Equifax following an epic breach that affected about 147 million people.

This is our life now: Endless efforts to avoid being victimized because our personal data has been stolen. So any settlements reached ought to go as far as possible to ease our burden.

In addition to its rate cut, the Fed also said it would stop shrinking its enormous bond portfolio in August, two months earlier than planned. This step is intended to avoid putting upward pressure on long-term borrowing rates. The Fed had aggressively bought Treasury

and mortgage bonds after the financial crisis to drive down long-term rates but had been gradually shrinking its balance sheet as the economy strengthened.

The Fed’s action Wednesday was approved 8-2 vote, with two dissents: Esther George, president of the Fed’s Kansas City regional bank, and Eric Rosengren, head of the Boston Fed, wanted to keep

rates unchanged. It was the first time there have been as many as two dissents since December 2017 and suggested that Chairman Jerome Powell may face opposition if he seeks further rate cuts this year.

Compared with when the Fed previously cut rates more than a decade ago, the economy is now solid by most measures, if not spectacular. Consumers are spending. Unemployment

is close to a half-century low. A recession hardly seems imminent.

Yet the Fed under Powell has signaled that rising economic pressures, notably from Trump’s trade wars and from weakness in Europe, Asia and elsewhere, have become cause for concern. So has an inflation rate that remains stubbornly below the Fed’s 2 percent target level.