7 Ways to Prevent Financial Fraud.
Prevent Financial Fraud.
If I could go back a few years ago and change one thing, it would be getting educated about the best ways to protect myself from financial fraud.
It would have also been not to make the mistake of leaving my wallet in my vehicle. I thought I had it hidden and out of view but the thief thought otherwise. They took my wallet and everything inside of it and of course maxed out all my credit cards. It took a while to get everything figured out, but I eventually did.
Now, if only I would have done some research into financial fraud prevention, I could have avoided the whole incident.
In more recent years, I’ve also had my debit card compromised by thieves using devices to scan all the information on my card. Luckily, my bank called me and cancelled my card and issued a new one and nothing was taken.
When it came to the “wallet in car” instance, I was young and careless, it can happen to anyone and at any time. Thieves are tricky nowadays and have ways to get your information with little effort. As our summer spending starts to rise, here are some tips from me and from Capital One Canada for helping prevent financial fraud.
1. Don’t leave anything in your vehicle
You may think times are safe, but you truly never know when someone will break into your vehicle. I have always brought everything inside since this incident. Believe me, that was a hard lesson learned. Not to mention, people just aren’t trustworthy and you never know what someone’s intentions are.
2. Use a strong pin for your debit card
You may think that your pin is strong, but thieves are smart. My advice is to ensure that your pin is as strong as possible. It’s amazing how something this simple can help prevent fraud in the long run.
Never use personal information such as a birthday, address, SIN number or telephone number as your PIN, and use a different PIN for each card. When paying at the store, cover the keypad! Most importantly, never share your PIN with anyone.
3. Always protect your own personal information
When it comes to preventing fraud, your personal information is one of the first things you should protect. Don’t give out your info to anyone and be careful when you’re paying for items online. You never know who will be out there to steal your information.
4. Get a copy of your Credit Report.
Knowing where your credit stands is incredibly important for all Canadians. But, often it is something we don’t think of doing. In fact, 87% of Canadians are not reviewing their credit report every year. You can get a free credit report once a year from the major credit reporting agencies like TransUnion by going to their website. Taking a look can alert you new accounts opened up in your name by fraudsters.
5. Watch out for Phishing emails.
Fraudsters often use emails as a way to find victims. My rule of thumb is if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Keep your eyes open for typos, grammatical errors and a sense of urgency. If you are ever unsure, open a new browser window and visit the legitimate site to see if there is anything really wrong with your account, or call the company. Never give out any information over email and don’t click any suspicious links.
6. Be vigilant and report it as soon as you can
It’s incredibly important to for you to remain vigilant when it comes to your account. The more often you check your account for transactions, the more likely you are to catch fraudulent charges quicker. The earlier the charges are reported; the easier it is for your credit card company to investigate them.
Banks like Capital One Canada offer features such as real-time alerts and push notifications to help customers identify suspicious purchase activity early on.
7. Preventative care is always best
Just like preventative care is best for everything else in life, it’s also best when you’re trying to protect your financials. A study from Capital One showed many Canadians (47%) have shared their credit card number over the phone, via email or through the mail, which again leaves them open to potential fraud.
What is more surprising is that 49% of Canadians use the same PIN for multiple cards, opening them up to potential account takeovers.
Of course, there are always scenarios where you did everything you could to protect yourself. However, it wasn’t enough. I love that Capital One is all for helping Canadians protect themselves against fraud. If you have one of their credit cards, they have smart choices built right in – which includes fraud protection and detection services.
If you have a Capital One Canada Mastercard, you should know you have access to the following protection:
- Two Way Fraud Alerts – You will get alerts if there’s suspicious behaviour and you will be able to flag the transaction for review.
- Second Look – flagging potential suspicious behaviour such as a duplicate transaction
- MasterCard Zero Liability – If someone steals your card or you lose it, you’re protected from unauthorized purchases.
Keep this tip in mind from Capital One: consumers are the first line of defense when it comes to protecting yourself against fraud. Capital One’s research shows that many Canadians – millennials in particular – aren’t doing enough to protecting themselves.
We can all do a little bit more to protect ourselves and prevent financial fraud from happening to us.
Please visit capitalone.ca/fraudprevention to learn more about preventing fraud and what you can do to protect yourself.
How do you prevent financial fraud in your everyday life?
Let me know, til then—cheers m’deres!
Note: Thanks to Capital One for partnering with me on this post and teaching me more about fraud prevention.
Nancy Polanco is a freelance journalist, lifestyle content creator, and editor of Whispered Inspirations. She is a proud Mom to Gabby and Michaela and partner and best friend to Darasak. Having worked as part of a health care team for almost a decade, Nancy is happy to be back to her passion. She is a contributor to the Huffington Post, TODAY’s Parents, and an Oprah Magazine Brand Ambassador.
These are excellent tips. The other thing my wife and I do is use a different and DIFFICULT password for every financial website we have.
That is a great tip!
These are things everyone needs to remember and be reminded of! So important
Thanks, I agree!
The thought of fraud or identity theft is so scary! I try and check my credit report for accuracy at least once every few months.
That is a great practice to follow.
Scary world these days with all the scams out there!
New ones pop up daily!
You provided solid tips and a couple I need to update on!
It can be scary!
I need to quit taking my wallet out of my purse to run in a store and leaving my purse in the car. I know, I know, its just asking for trouble! I will stop doing it pronto! Thanks for these tips.
My pleasure. Learn from my experience. It really sucks!
I fortunately have not been a victim of fraud. I can’t imagine what a headache it is! You are right about not keeping stuff in the car, I need to be better about that for sure.
Yes, it is not worth it!
I know it is so easy for people to steal your information these days. It is a horror for people who go through it. Thanks for sharing these ways to prevent financial fraud.
My pleasure, I hope it helps.
Using a strong pin and changing it from time to time is very important. These are great tips.
Yes!
Thanks Nancy for sharing all these great tips,you can’t be to careful !
My pleasure! 🙂
I am always worried about fraud. It seems to be getting easier for criminals to do it. These are great tips I will have to do.
Awesome! Hope they help.
Financial fraud is certainly on the rise! I’m more careful than ever and these are all great tips to prevent fraud. Preventative care is the best care.
Yes, it definitely is.
These are all terrific tips. My vehicle was broken into once just for a gps system, I have never understood why people leave their purses and wallets in their cars.
I was very young. SO definitely a case where you do not think it will happen to you.
I haven’t used a credit card in months, then all of a sudden I was getting charges for a pizza place. Some how, they stole my number, but not the card 🙁
Yes, with a scanner! Hope it worked out.
All are great information! I gotta note this. Every details are important! I would definitely always remember this.
Awesome!
I try to be very vigilant when it comes to my financial life. I continually check to make sure that no one has stolen my identity and I also continue to check my financial stuff just to make sure something is not being charged under that should not be. There is always more I can do and I love all the tips that you have here.
Awesome, hope you can use some of them. 🙂
These are really good tips and it’s really important in this electronic age to stay vigilant! We regularly keep an eye on everything and despite our best efforts have had credit card numbers stolen, but thankfully we caught them early.
That is great you caught it early.
These are some great tips, fraud is most definitely one of the most scary things you can go through.
It definitely is!
What a shame that financial fraud has become such a important issue in this world today. Will be saving and reviewing all of your suggestions and discussing them with my husband.
Awesome, so happy to hear that. Hope they help.
Someone stole my debit card information not too long ago and went shopping. At the liquor store. Now if it had of been for food or something health related, I could almost understand. But not for that, lol. Luckily my bank caught on when it was showing activity in another state and put a hold on the card from the suspected activity and they reimbursed the money that was spent. I’m super careful now.
WOW, that is nuts. Glad they were able to help you.
My husband keeps a constant eye on our bank account. He caught fraud on his debit card one year. He called the company listed on the transaction and stopped the order. Then thinking it was a fluke, someone went on a shopping spree at Walmart online. Walmart called my husband bc they assumed it was fraud.
OMG, that is crazy!
I’m so careful with all of my stuff! I work in accounting and we constantly have clients dealing with identity theft and fraud!
Must be difficult for you guys too.
These are awesome tips! I have had the same pin since I was 19 but it has nothing to do with anything. I always try to keep things random so hopefully it will keep me safe.
That is great. So far so good!
I agree that all of these are great things. The pin is the hardest one though. There are far too many things that want pins today and so with all of the things we are expected to remember, we get lazy with our pins. Or we make them all uniform because we have too many to remember unfortunately.
You are right, that one can get a bit tricky.
I have had phone cards (when we used to use them) stolen i other countries whilst traveling when I was i my 20’s- but it was discovered right away by the phone card company. I have also had Forever21 employees try to use my credit card number recently – but they didn’t have any fo the correct info. So I NEVER use anything but cash there now.
Always better to be safe than sorry.
I am the worst about leaving things in my car. It’s only through luck that I haven’t been broken into and have something stolen.
Oh wow! Do not forget to bring it in next time.
I’m bad about leaving things in my vehicle. It’s something I really need to work on.
Yes! Even loose change is a risk. Definitely something to think about.
These are great tips for preventing financial fraud. There are a lot of people that keep there cards in their car not thinking anything would happen to them but it is true you shouldn’t do it. Using different pins for each cards is a great idea. Thanks for sharing the tips.
I definitely learned the hard way! Never again.
These are all great ways to prevent financial fraud! I will definitely be implementing some of these in my life soon!!
Awesome, I hope they can help you safeguard your accounts.
These financial tips are totally on point. My husband is a financial advisor so he always has us stay vigilant and prepared for whatever financial difficulty might come our way.
Thanks so much! That is great to know. He is right, being vigilant goes a long way.
These are some of the best tips on how to prevent financial fraud! It is scary to fall victim to credit card fraud and we must really be vigilant in monitoring our bank statements.
Thanks so much! Yes, it is so important to be vigilant.
These are all great pieces of advice to keep us from being victims of financial fraud. I love Capital One Canada’s protection service. It is very important that we find a bank like them that helps their clients safeguard their hard earned money.
I agree completely!
I love how Capital One Canada provides these services to protect their client’s credit cards. I would not want to be a victim of financial fraud! That would be a nightmare.
It really is! I am glad they are there to help too. 🙂
These are all great tips. I’ve had my credit card cloned in the past and it’s not fun! It’s better to prevent than to have to go through it.
So very true! It is much easier to prevent than have to deal with the aftermath.
Its just so hard nowadays that all transactions was made online. And the fraud becomes more of the big issue. It is so nice that articles like this is available to read online for awareness.
So happy this can help. 🙂
These are definitely some great tips for preventing financial fraud. I’ve signed up for a service that notifies me whenever a credit check is run (i.e. application for credit card, etc).
That is great!
It always strikes when you are least expecting it. It is important to be wary of what we do online too.
Yes, it is better to be safe than sorry.
These are great tips , I used to think people were paranoid till it happened to me. Someone had gotten my bank card number and used it while I physically had my card, put a blank envelope in ATM and tried to take money out . I contacted the bank bc it said I had an extra 1000 in the bank , was very dissapointed as the bank basically was questioning me about it as if if had given out my card
That is unfortunate that that happened to you. 🙁