Avoid shopping online to avoid security threats                          $1,500
Buy and use a shredder for all receipts                                           $100
Finding out your bank lost your personal data                              Priceless

Excerpt:

Norman Black, a spokesman for the world's largest package delivery company, said a "small package" containing data storage tapes was lost while being transferred to a credit reporting bureau.

Experian, a credit reporting agency, told CNN that it was the intended recipient of the tapes. Don Girard, a spokesman for Experian, said the company alerted Citigroup in the last week of May that its regularly scheduled delivery did not arrive. Girard said the tapes were headed for its Data Center in Allen, Texas.

Black at UPS said his company and Citigroup are launching internal investigations, adding there was no evidence of theft or fraudulent activity. UPS ships some 14 million packages a day.

CitiFinancial is inviting customers to enroll via a toll-free number, 1-888-469-8603, in a free credit monitoring service for 90 days. It said it earlier enrolled the customers in a separate service to help prevent identity theft.