Due to the nature of online fraud and the 'credit card' society we live in, we found this article useful and hope you do to.
Occassionally, we post informative articles here at eduhosting.org. Enjoy...
IDENTITYWhat you can do to protect yourself from identity theft. |
|
...from an attorney... ATTORNEY'S ADVICE -- NO CHARGE Read this and make a copy for your files in case you need to refer to it someday! A corporate attorney sent the following out to the employees in his company. 1. The next time you order checks have only your initials (instead of first name) and last name put on them. If someone takes your checkbook, they will not know if you sign your checks with just your initials or your first name, but your bank will know how you sign your checks. 2. Do not sign the back of your credit cards. Instead, put "PHOTO ID REQUIRED". 3 When you are writing checks to pay on your credit card accounts, DO NOT put the complete account number on the "For" line. Instead, just put the last four numbers. The credit card company knows the rest of the number, and anyone who might be handling your check as it passes through all the check processing channels won't have access to it. 4. Put your work phone # on your checks instead of your home phone. If you have a PO Box use that instead of your home address. If you do not have a PO Box, use your work address. Never have your SS# printed on your checks.(DUH!) You can add it if it is necessary. But if you have it printed, anyone can get it. 5. Place the contents of your wallet on a photocopy machine. Do both sides of each license, credit card, etc. You will know what you had in your wallet and all of the account numbers and phone numbers to call and cancel. Keep the photocopy in a safe place. I also carry a photocopy of my passport when travel either here or abroad. We've all heard horror stories about fraud that's committed on us in stealing a name, address, Social Security number, credit cards. Unfortunately, I, an attorney, have firsthand knowledge because my Wallet was stolen last month. Within a week, the thieve(s) ordered an expensive monthly cell phone package, applied for a VISA credit card, had a credit line approved to buy a Gateway computer, received a PIN number from DMV to change my driving record information online, and more. But here's some critical information to limit the damage in case this happens to you or someone you know: 1. We have been told we should cancel our credit cards immediately. But the key is having the toll free numbers and your card numbers handy so you know whom to call. Keep those where you can find them. 2. File a police report immediately in the jurisdiction where your credit cards, etc., were stolen. This proves to credit providers you were diligent, and this is a first step toward an investigation (if there ever is one). But here's what is perhaps most important of all: (I never even thought to do this.) 3. Call the 3 national credit reporting organizations immediately to place a fraud alert on your name and Social Security number. I had never heard of doing that until advised by a bank that called to tell me an application for credit was made over the Internet in my name. The alert means any company that checks your credit knows your information was stolen, and they have to contact you by phone to authorize new credit. By the time I was advised to do this, almost two weeks after the theft, all the damage had been done. There are records of all the credit checks initiated by the thieves' purchases, none of which I knew about before placing the alert. Since then, no additional damage has been done, and the thieves threw my wallet away. This weekend (someone turned it in). It seems to have stopped them dead in their tracks. Now, here are the numbers you always need to contact about your wallet, etc., has been stolen: 1.) Equifax: 1-800-525-6285 2.) Experian (formerly TRW): 1-888-397-3742 3.) Trans Union: 1-800-680-7289 4.) Social Security Administration (fraud line): 1-800-269-0271 We pass along jokes on the Internet; we pass along just about everything. But if you are willing to pass this information along, it could really help someone that you care about. |
- Common Scam: if you use PayPal or eBay or have any credit cards, you
will often see emails that say:
...there is SOME PROBLEM (varies with each scam)
with your account and it will be closed if you do not
CLICK some link in this email and verify your identity.DO NOT CLICK ANY LINKS IN THE EMAIL. IF YOU DO YOU WILL IMMEDIATELY VERIFY TO THE CROOKS THEY HAVE A VALID EMAIL TO SEND SCAMS TO. You could also pick up a virus or spyware very easily.
Usually the scam involves you entering your email and account information, passwords and other secure data at a website owned by the crooks.
STOP!
NEVER respond to this type of email with your secure data. Your data should only be entered at trusted websites that you opened with your browser and went to on your own; not through some phony EMAIL with a suspect URL.
Want to be an online cop?
If you run your mouse over (DO NOT CLICK) the url/link in the email, notice that at the bottom of your browser (Explorer) you can see a URL that you will be directed to if you clicked the scam URL. Notice the URL at the bottom does not match the URL in the email.
Whenever you see a URL and want to know what website or domain actually owns it, simply look for the last few letters where it says .COM or .NET or .US or .TV or perhaps .RU (Russia) or .CN (China) etc. These scams come from all over the world.
- NEVER give your primary email address out for forums, online groups or memberships. Sooner or later it will go to somebody who will sell it and once it hits the lists you are doomed. Instead, seperate your transactions, clubs and services into FINANCIAL SECURE places (like PayPal, eBay, credit card companies you deal with, banks etc.) and all other places you visit, use a temporary 2nd email address. Make one up like mypublicemail@yahoo.com.
When this 'other' email address starts to get spam to the point it is a nightmare to maintain, just close it and open a new one. Tell any important clubs/forums/membership accounts the new email address and let the old one die.
- Want to eliminate 100% of your SPAM?
This one is easy; especially if you have a YAHOO email account. There are two steps to this.
- First, go to your options and add up a filter.
IF THE SUBJECT DOES NOT CONTAIN YOUR NAME SEND IT TO TRASH.
If your name is Joe, set it up so that if the subject does not contain Joe, send it to trash. All email senders that do not know your name will be unable to send spam to your inbox. This works with Outlook and most mail programs.
You can make this work even better if you make it a secret password or nickname. For example, if the subject does not contain the word LAUGHTER send it to the trash.
- Second, let the people you care about know about this filter.
You can send them all an email that says:
"Please note, due to all the spam going on I have set my email so that you MUST put the word LAUGHTER in the email subject or it will get deleted. Please make a note that if your email is deleted, I will not know about it. Please put the word LAUGHTER in all emails you send to me. I know this is a pain, but at least you can get a chuckle out of it.
- Third, if you want, you can let everyone you know know about this
spam protection: set up a VACTION REPLY or AUTORESPONSE. Simply
add the text above as a message everyone will see.
- Forth, if your filter uses your name, make sure
your name is NOT part of the emails you send out. A lot of
people put their real first and last name in their
yahoo and MSN and AOL email accounts. Bad idea. Instead,
use a nickname, like 'Snickers' or whatever folks
call you you and that way people who see your autoreply
that requires YOUR REAL NAME in the subject won't know
what to put in the subject...unless they know you personally
and know your name.
- Finally, you can always scan your 'trash' each day to
see if there is anything that 'slipped by' that you need to read.
The good news is since 90% of it is junk, you don't have to
click and delete anything. It is already in the trash. This
sure beats having to pick out emails from the inbox to delete.
If anyone actually sends you a 'good' email and it gets caught
in the trash and you miss it, no worries mate! If it was
important, they will contact you again. If they read your
reply, they will know they need to resend it with the
right keyword for the spam filter. And if it wasn't
important or they don't read YOUR emails, who cares? Let
it go to the trash!
- Next, signing up for online clubs, forums and services. We already suggested you have a seperate email account that you can 'throw away' for all these types of services. But what about places you buy stuff, like Amazon or Grainger. Again, why not use the '2nd junky' email address? That way when they start sending you spam and ads and offers you can just ignore them and eventually open a 2nd email address to replace this one.
- What about valid websites that ask for credit card info? How secure are those?
Secure websites that you trust that sell you goods and ask for your credit card info are pretty easy to spot. First you want to look at the URL address of the site. Is it the same as the one you THINK you are visiting?
Example:
fraud.division.ebay.security.pdinvestigate.com/update_info/protectyourid/id=email%20verify=ab53cd7g1k123
While it may look like an ebay URL and even if you click it, this just may even smell like ebay, but in fact, this is a fake URL that belongs to some organization at pdinvestigate.com. ALWAYS look at the URL after the http:// portion and find the first slash or .com or .org or .net etc. And then backup 1 word and you will see the actual domain that owns that email address. In the example above, it would be pdinvestigate.com.
- If you are sure you are at the right website and want to see if they are secure, look at the http:// portion of the url.
http://ebay.com is NOT a secure place to enter passwords and credit card information.
https://ebay.com has the https letters and these are considered safe. There is an encryption/secure feature associated with this type of webserver. The https indicates the data sent to them will go through a secure internet e-commerce process. Otherwise hackers can easily see your information as it is sent to the website. Be careful. Look for the https letters at the beginning of all URLs when entering financial or sensitive information.
- Building a relationship with a seller or vendor and want to know if they are legitimate?
With all these auctions going on and e-stores everywhere it's hard to figure out who delivers the goods and who just takes the money.
First, some products take time to deliver; for example, a gentleman imports Bungalos and Tiki rooms for jacuzzi owners and people who want add that 'Polynesian' feel to the backyard. He has to order each one from Indonesia and they take 3 to 6 months. Customers get pretty upset waiting, but that is just how it is.
A wind generator firm makes blades and custom carves them to suit the wind conditions of each customer's location (if requested). These take 3-6 weeks to carve, sand, coat and ship. The generators that go with the blades also take a long time since they come from a supply house and ship ground. If they are going overseas, this can take a long time.
In both of these cases, the products take a long time so it helps if you read the website descriptions carefully so you know that just because you haven't received a product after 2-4 weeks, perhaps this particular product takes longer.
That said, how do you know if the seller is actually going to send the product to you? If you bought it at eBay, check their feedback from other customers. If it is good or at least 90 percent good and if they have a rating number that shows they have shipped several dozen (or thousand) products and received mostly good feedback, you will probably be ok.
If they have a lot of bad feedback or have less than a dozen trades, be careful. You might not actually get the product you bought.
- CHILDREN need to be careful on the net. A lot of predators pretend to be kids and gain the trust of children 4 to 18 years old (even teenagers fall for this stuff) and then get personal information about them, where they live, what they do etc. and can use that information to commit crimes, both against the family and of course, against the child themself. These crimes are easy to stop:
- NEVER let your child sign up for a chat room or forum
or club without telling you about it and getting your approval.
- NEVER let your child use their real name or real
address on any website without talking to you about the product,
service, purchase etc. and having you there in front of the
PC to review it.
- Tell your child to NEVER share photos, emails, addresses, phone
numbers, family names etc. with people they have met online. If
it is the baseball coach you know and love and they need your
kids head size for a league hat, fine. Have a conversation
with them and ask about the weather over there on the East Side.
You can easily verify identities of people with just a few
emails back and forth before giving out important information.
- NEVER let kids invite people over or make appointments to
see people they met away from you. This is the most common
way sexual predators get kids alone. Be careful.
- Offer your child a dollar if they find someone online who wants their personal information. That way they will report it to you right away when something fishy 'pops up'.
- If you want to know where they have surfed, check the
history folder. If your child is a wise-guy/girl and deletes
this history folder, check the CONTROL PANEL - INTERET OPTIONS
- SETTINGS - FILES etc. and you will see a ton of cookies
on your PC from all the websites that PC has visited.
- You can also purchase software that tracks all kinds of
things, such as sites visited and data entered and photos
viewed.
- You can also get a FIREWALL, like Norton or PC-Cillan.
These help prevent your PC from infection from spyware software.
Spyware, once on an unprotected PC, will scan all your
PC documents and look for passwords and names and telephone
numbers etc. and then transmit this info back to the
the spyware maker. You are officially violated, but then
the scams really start. Your financial data, account
numbers and passwords all go out the door. The best
protection against this is to keep that info written down
and not on the PC.
- A ROUTER between you and the DSL or BROADBAND connection
is even better. This stops intruders cold if the router has
any security features at all built into it.
- NEVER give your primary email address out for forums, online groups or memberships. Sooner or later it will go to somebody who will sell it and once it hits the lists you are doomed. Instead, seperate your transactions, clubs and services into FINANCIAL SECURE places (like PayPal, eBay, credit card companies you deal with, banks etc.) and all other places you visit, use a temporary 2nd email address. Make one up like mypublicemail@yahoo.com.