How to stay safer when banking and paying bills
B
anking
and paying bills online is convenient and can be safer than banking
and bill paying in the physical world where you have to worry about
lost and stolen mail and having discarded statements stolen from your
trash. Banks go to great lengths to protect your information when you
perform transactions online, and there are protections in place to
shield consumers in the event of banking fraud.
In
most cases the weakest link in online banking is the consumer. This
is good news, because it means that you can control your online
experience by educating yourself.
Follow
these steps to stay safer when banking online:
Make
sure your computer has up-to-date versions of anti-virus
and anti-spyware software
and install all updates.
If
you open an account with a new bank, confirm that it is legitimate
and your deposits are insured.
Keep
personal information private and secure: don’t share
passcodes, passwords, or ID’s with anyone.
Never
conduct financial transactions from a public computer because you
don’t know what tracking tools may be capturing information.
Create
strong passwords
for accessing your account.
Be
alert to e-mail scams asking
for your account number or password.
Ensure
that you are actually dealing with your bank and not with a
phishing
site. NEVER believe an e-mail, no matter how convincing it looks,
that notifies you that there is an issue with your account and asks
you to click a link or call a number provided in the e-mail to fix
the problem, re-authenticate your account, or provide your
credentials.
Always
type in your bank’s URL yourself; if you click a provided
link, you may land on a site that looks legitimate, but isn’t.
Store your bank’s URL in your online favorites in your browser
so you can return to it quickly and with confidence.
Monitor
your account activity to detect potential fraud by requesting online
credit reports.
You have the right to one FREE credit disclosure in a twelve-month
period from EACH of the three national credit reporting
companies—TransUnion,
Experian,
and Equifax.
The easiest way to get these reports is through
AnnualCreditReport.com,
a service created by these three credit institutions specifically to
help consumers get free annual reports. You can also pay for credit
monitoring services to watch your credit for you.
