Online fraud, telephone fraud, credit and debit card fraud – it seems that there are so many ways for unscrupulous minds to take advantage of your personal and financial information. However, you can mitigate the risk by remembering a few basic rules:
- Keep your credit card numbers private. Never give your credit card number to anyone - not even someone claiming to be from a charity! - over the phone.
- Don’t fall for scams claiming big rewards for a donation of money. For example, don’t believe anyone who says they will give you a cruise if you donate $100 dollars to their charity.
- Only buy from secure online shopping sites.
- Use online bill payment services when you shop online to avoid having to enter in your credit card information. When you checkout using a service like eBillme, you pay for your purchases through online bill pay, and completely remove the need to share personal or financial information online.
- Be wary of work-from-home scams. Remember, you should be paid for doing a job; you shouldn’t have to pay to get one.
Online fraud is an unfortunate reality, but being forewarned is being forearmed. With a little information, you can easily detect scams and prevent yourself and those you know from being made victims.
