SEATTLE — Online fraudsters have strengthened their tactics to steal your personal financial information by impersonating financial institutions and using logos and photos from real people and businesses. It has become harder for consumers to differentiate between what is a real business and a fraudulent institution while online.
Knowing how to differentiate between legitimate and fake emails or social media accounts is one of the best ways to remain safe in the online landscape. Sean Murphy, BECU's Senior Vice President of Information Security, offers concrete tips on how to protect your financial information.
Verify these three things for any social account or website
- Look at the name of the social account: A verified social media account will have a blue checkmark icon right by the name. The checkmark is issued to accounts by social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to verify that it is a legitimate account.
- Look at type of content posted by the account: A social account that has a lot of followers, but not a lot of content is highly suspect, "It's difficult to create that content, so it won't be very deep with comments or posts or things like that, but there will be a lot of followers."
- Look at the Website Address: "A fraudulent website typically will have a lot of extra characters, words in there that have nothing to do with the organization that you're searching for, underscores and weird gobbledygook."
S.H.U.T.U.P - an acronym to remember
"I like to tell people to just remember to S.H.U.T.U.P.", said Murphy, "Which is an easy way to remember the red flags to look for to spot a fraudster.
S- Sensational
A fraudster's content tends to be very sensational, "We call them click-bait. They draw your eyes, they want you to try and click on something. You can pass that by."
H- Hostile
The tone of the messaging is usually very hostile and aggressive. The fraudster wants to push you to do something. If someone says something threatening like, "We're going to send the IRS to your door or else," or, "We're going to initiate a warrant for your arrest", [that's] typically fraudulent.
U - Unfamiliar
If you don't know who the person is that's sending you something or you don't recognize the picture in the profile, you can be pretty sure it's probably fraudulent.
T - Too good to be true
It was great advice 100 years ago, it still remains good advice. For notices of a big lottery, win, or large cash rewards, remember, "If it's too good to be true, it probably is."
U - Urgency
A fraudster will try to railroad you into something with an impending and urgent deadline, for example: Act now!, I've only got five left! I'm gonna have to bypass you if you don't respond to this! "That's usually something that Disney uses or furniture stores, but in most cases, it's fraudulent."
P - Personal Information
If you are being asked for a lot of personal information by somebody who's contacted you and wants to "verify your identity" it's probably fraudulent, "Legitimate sources like BECU or AARP have ways of contacting you and getting information from you if they need to, but they're not going to ask for your personal information. If you contact them, that's a different story."
If you are a victim...
First of all and foremost, don't be embarrassed, "This happens to the best of us. We really want you to reach out and contact BECU, or in the case of your financial institution, we want you to reach out and report it."
If the impostors are posing as someone else instead of your financial institution, you may report the fraudulent activity to the police and law enforcement.
"Last but not least, if you're not already doing this, you should be monitoring your credit report, " said Murphy, "You should be monitoring your bank statements and different bills that you pay for any kind of weird activity,"
He recommends setting up alerts on all of your accounts to monitor activity like establishing credit or using your identity, "You can take action much quicker then if you're just getting it retroactively through a bill."
Take a second
"Always take that extra second to be cautious," said Murphy. "That will help you from doing all the things you should never do." Take a moment to look for those red flags like urgency or fear a message is establishing. Use S.H.U.T.U.P. and look through the message for red flags and don't be embarrassed. if you do click on a link, report it.
EVENT INFO: Fight Fraud— Shred Instead!
"Shredding is a really important piece of information protection as well," said Murphy. "It's still very important to not put your bills and your receipts and things into a recycle bin."
Identity Theft is one of the fastest-growing white-collar crimes in the U.S. That is why AARP and BECU invite you to bring old documents containing your personal information to our mobile shredding truck for free disposal.
Free shredding and e-cycling will be available on Saturday, October 12 from 9:00 am - 1:00 pm in Spokane, Everett, Federal Way, and Tukwila.
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