Protect Yourself from Fraud, Deception and Identity Theft

The following is a list of general tips that will help you protect yourself from fraud and deception. Nobody likes to think about consumer fraud and scams. Form good habits that will help guard your personal and financial information and the likelihood that you have the unpleasant experience of being scammed will be reduced significantly. Make every effort to purchase products and services from people you know and can trust and this will also greatly reduce the likelihood of being scammed.  

1.         Guard your Personal access and Identification Numbers for your ATM and credit cards. Make your pin numbers unique. Many people use obvious pin numbers to make them easy to remember. Thieves know this. Obvious pins are birth dates, part of your Social Security Number or driver’s license number, address, or children’s or spouse’s names. If your identity has been stolen or compromised it is likely the perpetrator has all of this information. Don’t write on or keep your PINs with your cards. You should also guard your ATM and credit card receipts as well since thieves can use them to access your accounts.

2.         Don't carry or use your Social Security number for identification. Do not use your social security number on your drivers’ license, library card, voter registration card or any other form of identification. 

3.        Don't use or carry a checkbook. Checks can be lost, copied, washed and have personal information printed on them. You should generally pay by cash or credit card. Try to pay your bills through your bank or credit union's online bill paying service. If you do use checks to pay bills through the mail, do not leave the bills in your personal mailbox for the postman.

4.         Report lost or stolen checks immediately to your bank. Review your bank statements and cashed checks routinely to make sure there are no discrepancies.

5.         Don’t print your driver’s license number or social security number on your checks. Don’t print your telephone number on your check if you can.

6.         Store personal financial records, medical records and bills in a safe place. Shred them when you are done with them. Many of these documents have personal information on them that can be used by thieves to steal your identity.

7.         Shred your documents. Shred any documents that have any personal information on them. This includes anything with your social security number, bank account numbers, general financial information and credit card numbers. Thieves that obtain such information can steal your identity.

8.         Don’t put outgoing mail with any personal information attached in or on your personal mailbox. Drop it into a secure, official Postal Service collection box. Identity thieves and check washers love to steal mail from mailboxes.

9.         If you suspect you are not receiving regular bills in the mail, call the company and inquire. It is possible someone may have filed a false change-of-address notice with the company to divert your information to his or her address.

10.       Don’t ever give out any financial information. Unless you initiate the contact or personally know the person you are dealing with do not give out any personal financial information on the phone or over the internet. Most companies will never ask for this in an email, on linked web pages or over the phone. Generally your personal information is only required by medical professionals, banks, credit card companies and mortgage companies.

11.       Don't fill out sweepstakes cards or other promotions you see in stores and shopping malls.  That will just get you on a junk mailing list and guarantee calls from persistent, high-pressure salesmen.

12.       Place a Fraud Alert or Freeze on you credit. This prevents scammers from opening unauthorized accounts in your name by requiring your personal authorization to open any new credit account.

13.       Unless you like unsolicited sales calls place yourself on the national DO-NOT-CALL list.

14.       Block credit card offers. Keeps credit card offers from arriving in your mailbox and alerting thieves to your good credit.

15.       Create and Use a unique and separate email address when you post messages to any public forum on the Internet. This measure helps prevent spam and helps you determine which emails are real and which are likely from criminals.

16.       Guard your email address. You may create disposable email addresses that mask your real email address and forward mail to you. This helps avoid spam and can be changed at any time.

17.       Your computer may make you vulnerable. Use good anti-virus software, anti-adware software and a hardware firewall on your computer, and keep them current. A computer savvy thief can access personal information from your computer remotely.

18.       Never open attachments or click on links sent to you by spammers.  Don’t buy anything from a company that sends you spam. Don't even visit their web sites or ask for more information. A majority of spam email offers are in fact scams.

19.       Most email programs allow you to set up filters to help you screen your emails. Set the filters so that once you identify a spammer, you never see another email from them again.

20.       If you have a website, do not post your address in the HTML format. Spiders that crawl the internet will copy your email address and add it the spammers’ lists. Instead use feedback forms for people to contact you. 

21.       Never ignore suspicious charges on any bill. Investigate immediately; if your identity has been stolen you may be able to prevent further damage before it occurs.

22.       Check your credit report often.  Federal law permits you to check your credit for free once a year with each of the 3 major credit reporting agencies.

23.       Sometimes it is very hard to simply apply common sense, but when it comes to money, if it appears to be too good to be true... it probably is.