You may have noticed recent changes your financial institutions have been making to security and to accessing your accounts digitally. With today’s digital landscape continually evolving, the methods of theft are as well. Banks, credit unions, and other financial technology, such as PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, etc., are having to develop new ways to counteract this. There are things you can be doing on your own to help protect yourself from potential loss and/or theft of personal information.
1. EMAILS – Be aware that emails with links and attachments should be verified as legitimate before clicking on a link or opening an attachment. Ways to do this include carefully reading the email address. The email may provide a name for whom it is from that looks familiar to you, but the actual email address is different from that contact’s email address. I take the philosophy of “when in doubt, verify or throw it out”. Scammers are very good at wording emails to sound scary to illicit a response. After deleting potential scam emails, make sure to delete them from your trash folder as well.
2. TEXTS – Links in text messages can be just as dangerous as links in emails. Always make sure you know who is sending the text and if you’re not sure, apply the rule above “when in doubt, verify or throw it out”.
3. PHONE CALLS – Scammers have advanced technology to the point that they can spoof a fake phone number to show up on your caller ID that is a legitimate phone number for an actual business or person. The key is to never provide your personal information or bank account information to someone who has called you. Always offer to call them back at the phone number on the bill, statement, or website search. If they are legitimate, they will understand completely.
4. VERIFY – The easiest way to verify before trusting an email, text message, or a phone call is to look up the phone number for the supposed sender/caller with a website search and then call them.
5. CHECK ACCOUNTS FREQUENTLY – Logging in to your bank accounts on a frequent basis allows for you to stay on top of any potentially fraudulent activity, catching it before it becomes a larger problem.
Scammers prey on certain subsects of the population, but knowing who to trust and when is key to protecting yourself from negative consequences. We all want to trust that the phone call claiming to be the internet company about a past-due balance really is the internet company. However, approaching incoming emails, text messages, and phone calls with a modicum of skepticism could keep you from falling prey to the increasingly authentic-looking scams.
Tammy at American Southwest Bookkeeping designs a comprehe
