You don’t think about the need for fraud prevention until you have been the victim of fraud. Fraud prevention includes simple actions that you can take to help reduce the chance of losing your private information to fraudsters. There are also different ways to monitor and protect your personal information from each type of fraud. All of them involve safeguarding private information such as passwords, account numbers, card numbers, and Social Security numbers.

Protecting your personal information is an ongoing process and requires consistent action. You should always be aware of who has your personal information. Only share this information when you can verify the identity and validity of the person requesting it. There is no such thing as asking too many questions when you need to verify that a phone call or email is not fraudulent.  

Start by setting some security features on your email account and computer. Here are a few things that you can do to help:

• Switch on the spam filters for suspected fraud emails in your email settings. 
• If you don’t have these spam filter/fraud protection options, then consider switching email providers. 
• Add a spam/pop-up blocker in your internet browser settings. 
• For further protection, you can try a free anti-virus software like AVG or Avast.

While these security features can help block fraud attempts, you can still receive some suspicious messages. Practice these tips:

• If you don’t recognize the phone number or email address, then you should be suspicious of the message from the start. Don’t click on any links or respond. 
• If you do recognize the email address, double check that it is spelled correctly. Usually, fraudsters will change one letter or symbol in the address, or the email provider will not be a well-known one like gmail.com, yahoo.com, or outlook.com.
  • For example:
    • jrsmith@userdomain.com has an unusual email provider.
    • jrsmith@paypall.com has an extra letter in PayPal and is hard to notice.
    •  ups_shipment@ups-notice.com uses random symbols in the email address to make it a little different. 
  • To help address any concerns with the validity of the email sender, you can try Google searching the email address to see if it is a reputable source.
• If you do recognize the phone number, answer to confirm the person’s identity. This is important because phone numbers can be spoofed by fraudsters to make the call seem like a local call.
  • If you don’t recognize the voice, ask a few questions to verify their identity. There are never too many questions when protecting your personal information. 
• For further protection, you can follow these tips provided by Norton Anti-Virus 

It is important to remember that even when you are cautious, these are professional scam artists, and they can be difficult to spot. If you do become a victim of fraud, there are steps you can take. We also have Team Members who can help you.While fraud is never 100% preventable, being proactive is still the best way to reduce your chances of falling victim to fraud. We can send you text message alerts when fraud is suspected on your account, so make sure your contact information is up to date. If you have a debit MasterCard, you can register for MasterCard Identity Theft Protection for even further monitoring on your personal information. There is no such thing as too much fraud protection and prevention when it comes to your private information.