Fraud Prevention Tips

Fraud Prevention Tips, Resources and Recommendations

Below you'll find an updated list of news stories about tactics cyber criminals are using, ways to safeguard your information and other helpful resources. You can also subscribe and receive the latest news regarding fraud schemes and cyber attacks direct to your inbox.

What You can do to Protect Yourself

Today's cyber criminals continue to try new approaches, test new tactics and otherwise do everything they can to take advantage of consumers. While their methods are always evolving, the below tips are some general recommendations you can take to better safeguard your accounts and information.

Never respond to emails or text messages you didn't initiate asking for your personal banking or credit card information, including credit card numbers, one-time passcodes, and PINs.
Be wary of promotional scams. Identity thieves may use phony offers, over-the-phone, through email, via text message, etc., to get you to give them your personal information. Scammers may try to impersonate family and friends! If you didn't ask for $50 from grandma, don't respond to "her" text request to enter the passcode you just received to claim it! (Reach out to grandma directly to verify the validity of the text.)
Enter your personal information only on secure websites. Look for a “lock” on the browser or “https” at the beginning of the website address to ensure the site is secure.
Never use email to send your confidential information, since internet email is not secure. To send us a secure message, use the Contact Us section of this website.
Do not open emails or text messages if you don’t recognize the sender’s name. When in doubt, delete!
Change passwords regularly using a mixture of upper and lower case characters and numbers. Use passwords that are not easily guessed. Do not share password information with anyone. Do not use the same passwords for multiple websites.
Update anti-virus software and security patches to your system software regularly. Also, be sure and perform software updates to your mobile devices, too, to avoid malware specifically targeting smartphones, tablets and other similar electronics.
Review your credit report once a year, and tear up or shred any pre-approved credit offers that you do not want.
Check your monthly statements to verify all transactions and notify your financial institution of any suspicious transactions.
Limit the amount of identification and the credit cards you carry.
Identity thieves may steal mail. Consider locking your mailbox.
Report lost or stolen checks and credit cards immediately. In addition, report identity theft incidents to the credit bureaus (Experian, TransUnion and Equifax). Consider placing alerts or taking other actions suggested by the bureaus to protect your credit (please contact the bureaus directly for more information).
Follow the ATM safety tips list on this page. We want the ATM to be safe and convenient for you. Therefore, please tell us if you know of any problem with a facility. For instance, let us know if a light is not working or there is any damage to a facility. Please report any suspicious activity or crimes to both the operator of the facility and the local law enforcement official immediately.

Password Tips:

A strong password is an important protection to help you have safer online transactions. Here are steps you can take to create a strong password. Some or all might help protect your online transactions:

Length. Make your passwords at least eight or more characters.

Complexity. Include letters, punctuation, symbols, and numbers. Use the entire keyboard and include punctuation, symbols and numbers. The greater the variety of characters in your password, the better. However, password hacking software automatically checks for common letter-to-symbol conversions, such as changing “and” to “&” or “to” to “2.”

Variation. Change passwords frequently. Set an automatic reminder to change your passwords to access your email, banking accounts, and credit card websites.

As a best practice, InTouch members who use our Online/Mobile Banking platform are required to change their password at least every 12 months. Members can certainly change their password more often, but passwords must be updated at least annually.

Variety. Don’t use the same password for everything. Cybercriminals steal passwords on websites that have very little security, and then they use that same password and user name in more secure environments, such as banking websites.

There are many ways to create a secure password and below are some suggestions that might help you begin to develop a password and ways to remember it:

Example:

Start with a sentence
Passwords that are complex are safe

Remove spaces in the sentence
Passwordsthatarecomplexaresafe

Use shorthand or misspell word
Passwordsthatrcompleksrsafe

Add a number that is meaningful
Passwordsthatrcompleksrsafe1951 (Date of birth for example)

Cyber criminals use sophisticated tools that can rapidly decipher passwords. Avoid passwords that use the following protocol:

Words spelled backwards

Common misspellings, and abbreviations

Sequences or repeated characters. (Ex: 12345678, 222222, abcdefg, or adjacent letters on your keyboard – QWERTY).

Personal information – your name, birthday, driver’s license, passport number, or similar information.

For more assistance, call the Contact Center team, at 800-337-3328.

Phishing

Phishing is where criminals attempt to collect account numbers, personal identification numbers (PINs), usernames, passwords and other important information from individuals via faulty emails, websites, phone calls, links, etc. They then use the compromised information to access online banking accounts and/or commit identity fraud.

Remember, ITCU will NEVER contact you to verify security information such as account numbers, passwords or other personal information, we already have such information on file. Security verification information should only be requested when you initiate the contact with the credit union. This includes being locked out of Online Banking; if you become locked out of Online Banking, you will be notified during the login process, not by an unsolicited email. If ITCU sends you a text message fraud alert, it should only ask you to verify the validity of your most recent transaction via a “yes” or “no” response.

If you receive a phishing email or text that has asked for your information, links you to an unknown website or has illegally used our name, logo or website, please notify us immediately.

If you ever have any concerns about the authenticity of any communication you receive listed as from InTouch Credit Union, please type in ITCU.org into your web browser (do not click any suspicious email links) and use the Contact Us icon found on the homepage. Or you can call the ITCU Contact Center at 800-337-3328 and we will be happy to verify any email, phone call, text, etc., in order to help protect you from fraud.