It is recently reported that there have been massive credit card security breaches. Hackers and scammers are always in a search for an easy score. It is not possible to keep them from targeting big corporations, but what you can do is that you can take steps to ensure that they don’t get your personal information due to any mistake made by yourself.
Usual Advices To Ensure Your Credit Card Security
You’ve must have heard the usual advice such as don’t ever carry all of your credit cards in your wallet; never give out your credit card number over the phone; and never shop online except at trusted web sites with good security measures in place. What else can you do to protect yourself?
Don’t fall for phishing scams.
The probable sources of these scams are that they can come in the form of official-sounding e-mails, text messages, or phone calls. Typically the premise is the same: your account has shown there which is a suspicious activity, and now in order to verify your identity and regain access to your account you must have to provide your PIN, password, or Social Security Number. Don’t fall prey to these scams! It might be claimed by the scammers that they does work for your bank, a major retailer, or even the IRS.
Here the problem is that your personal account details via text, phone, or e-mail will never be asked by any of those entities. If this thing happens to you and you have received a phishing message, you don’t answer it and just simply ignore it and then contact the actual business using their official contact information. There are chances that you’re not the only victim they’ve heard from.
Did you know this fact that the workplace is a popular environment for identity theft? If you’ve been doing some holiday shopping or paying your bills online, then before leaving first you should lock your workstation, you have to do it even if you have gone for a short break because it will take not much time for a co-worker to come to your desk and search your computer files. You must not forget to lock your workstation in order to protect your credit card numbers and other private information.
For locking your workstation you should use such a password that’s hard to guess. While you’re at it, you should keep your wallet or purse with you every time, or you may also leave them in a locked desk drawer; simply swiping the card themselves is the easiest way for someone to steal your credit card numbers. Then you can rest assured that even when you’re away your information is safeguarded.
Don’t send money.
There are now many forms of “Nigerian” scam, it is named for its country of origin. Usually what are shown by them are the e-mails that congratulated the target on their recent inheritance, or winning lottery numbers. Now these scams are found everywhere from pet adoption web sites to online job boards. Advance payment is involved in the scam – usually they ask it for some kind of processing fee. No matter how sincere they look to you, in order to stay safe, you should never wire money or also that you should never share your bank account details with anyone.
Also that on most of the pet adoption web sites the amount of money that can be charged for an adoption is limited. If you look that the amount seems suspiciously high (hundreds of dollars), then you should report the individual to the site’s administrator in order to make sure everything is legitimate.
In order to get their hands on your financial information identity thieves will stoop very low. By making mistakes in securing information don’t make their job any easier one. By knowing their tricks be a smart cardholder and learn how to avoid them.
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Posted by R. Mak in Card Security · 1 Comment
Cheers for the post, I enjoyed the read. Bookmarked.