Tag Archives: Identity theft

Identity Theft Tips For This Holiday Season

Online shopping and in-store deals will bring everyone out this holiday season. This also means that with the shoppers come criminals. Identity theft is on the rise with all the different ways information can be stolen. Milledgeville State Bank wanted to offer these top tips this season to help you keep your identity safe and secure.

Use Secure Sites

When you see an ‘s’ at the end of ‘http’ in the URL, that means the site has an SSL which means it’s secure. LifeLock states, “You should also be sure that emails sent to you with promotional links don’t point back toward an altered link, often with one or two letters missing or changed. This could signal a phishing scam, designed to fool you into entering personal information, like your credit card number or your email and password, which may later be used in an attempt to compromise your identity.”

Set Spending Alerts

For debit and credit cards, you can usually set a limit on the card for when it needs to alert you to ‘spending past your set limit.’ If you get an email or text alerting you to extra purchases, that can be a quick way to find out your identity was stolen.

Check Your Statements

A lot of banks now offer e-statements, so you don’t even have to wait until the next month to see your expenses. Find out ways to check your statements this holiday season more frequently to be on the lookout for strange purchases.

Watch For Scams

There are so many scams during the holiday season – we can’t even name them all! Be very wary of fake charities, emails, links and so forth. Only give to trusted sources if you want to spread the holiday cheer and be extra cautious when reading emails and clicking links.

Keep Away From Skimmers

It’s easy to forget that even when you’re the one using the card, it’s still in danger. Skimmers tend to pop up more around the holidays, which are invisible to the untrained eye and download your credit card information to the computers of criminals. Then, criminals can steal your identity. Here’s an article on how to avoid skimmers.

Hopefully, these simple tips help you stay a little more cautious when doing your holiday shopping. Be on the lookout and extra aware this season, so you can keep your identity safe!

How To Protect Yourself From Identity Theft

theft

The first step in protecting yourself from identity theft is understanding what identity theft actually is. It’s defined as “the illegal use of someone else’s personal information usually in order to obtain money or credit.”

Do you have a credit card? If so, in a study by Experian, 81% of people said they rely on their banks and credit card companies to protect them from fraud. We don’t want you to fall in that 81%, so we offer these 5 ways you can protect yourself.

Freeze your credit – This will restrict access to all of your records so that any new credit files cannot be opened, unless you unfreeze it. There may be an additional fee to do this, but it will vary depending on the state.
Create stronger passwords – Many people love to use the same password for a variety of different sites. In the end you may think this is a good idea, however it’s not. Mixing up your passwords in addition to making them more difficult will decrease your risk of your identity being stolen. If it helps, write your passwords down for your specific sites but be sure to keep that information in a safe place. Random combinations of letters, numbers and special characters work best.
Limit your personal information – Are your full name, birthdate and family members listed on your social media sites? If that information is out there, it’s likely that anyone can see it. Limit the amount of personal information you put on the internet and check your privacy settings. Fraudsters may also pose as a bank/credit card company over the phone asking for your information. But, no real company will call asking for your personal information. Therefore, don’t give anything away!
Check your credit/financial reports – You are allowed a free credit report from each of the credit bureaus every 12 months on AnnualCreditReport.com. Credit reports will include any leery activity on your accounts, so check your credit reports frequently for any incorrect information.
Use a shredder – Don’t have a shredder? We recommend you buy one, especially if you’re throwing away any credit card or bank statements. Documents like those should not be placed in the garbage unless they are shredded to pieces. If they’re placed in the garbage, anyone has the ability to find it and steal your information.

There’s no doubt that identity thieves are out there, so it’s up to you to take extra caution. With these helpful tips, we hope you can become extra successful at protecting yourself from identity theft.

Are You Protecting Your Kids From Identity Theft?

We don’t often consider our children at risk for identity theft. This makes them a target for many thieves.

Do you know what your child’s credit report looks like? Of course not! Why would you check a credit report for someone who doesn’t have any credit? While it may seem ridiculous, this is the reason that children are easy targets for identity theft. Thieves know that adults aren’t going to be checking a credit report for a child so they can run up debt for years without being detected. Common ways that thieves get information about children are medical records, mail tampering and computer searches. Here are a few ways to help protect your child’s identity.

Guard their Social Security number – Never carry your child’s Social Security card in your wallet, give the number out over the phone unless you trust the recipient and don’t give them the number until he or she is old enough to understand what it is.
Be mindful when posting information about your child – If you want to post on social media that it is your child’s birthday, don’t reveal their age. Thieves can use that information to get their complete date of birth and access personal information. If you have a child online, stress to them the importance of protecting personal information on the internet.
Be careful with their birth certificate – A lot of club sports teams ask parents to present a birth certificate as proof of a child’s age. If your child’s coach asks for personal documents, make a copy and show it to the coach. Put the copy in a sealed envelope with your name on it and let the coach know that you expect to get the envelope back unopened at the end of the season.

Signs that your child’s identity has been stolen:

Your child receives unsolicited credit offers or letters from debt collectors
If you try to open an account for your child and the bank tells you that an account with your child’s Social Security number has already been opened
The IRS sends you a letter saying that the Social Security number listed for your child on your tax return is a duplicate

Unfortunately, identity theft is becoming increasingly common and nobody is free from risk, including children. Milledgeville State Bank wants to keep you and your family safe and at peace. Contact us today if you have about setting up a savings account for your children’s security.