6 Easiest Ways to Protect Yourself from Fraud
February 24, 2009
Fraud can be an unauthorized charge on your credit card, or it can be a disastrous evaporation of your entire savings. These tips can help keep your nest egg from shrinking to the size of a hummingbird's:
Is Plastic Fantastic?
Not always. Credit or debit cards are convenient and can be canceled if lost or stolen. But unfortunately, card fraud occurs frequently.
Stash Cash When Eating Out
Restaurants are fairly common venues for credit card creepiness. When possible, pay for meals with cash. It's too easy for someone to make an extra imprint for later illegal use when your card is out of your sight--and no antacid invented can relieve the pain of being ripped off.
Ignore Rude Questions
You receive an urgent request to "verify information" for your bank or a credit card company. Or you get a call "about your car loan" and tare asked for your date of birth. How rude! And how suspicious--legitimate companies never ask for personal information online or over the phone unless you initiate the transaction (such as making a purchase or paying a bill online).
Be Heartless
One scam involves strangers contacting senior citizens and telling them that a grandchild is in trouble and needs money for an attorney or other assistance. The victims are told that he or she cannot come to the phone, but that sending (fill in the blank) dollars will secure the family member's release. Victims authorize charges on their credit cards. Never give strangers any financial information--no matter how compelling their story is.
Greed Is Not Good
You receive an e-mail from someone promising to pay you a huge sum in return for your assistance in transferring funds into the US from some fourth-world backwater. You're asked to provide your bank account information, and in minutes your account is history, duh. Use one simple rule for e-mail from strangers: when in doubt, delete.
Avoid Free Lunches
Unless you want the financial equivalent of food poisoning. In times when everyone's concerned about protecting their money, the crooks come calling. You may be offered "the business opportunity of a lifetime," or be asked to "invest" in a "fail proof" product, business, or financial opportunity.
Getting rich overnight and without hard work doesn't happen often enough to be worth risking money you do have.
