The Ultimate Guide to Fraud Prevention for Your Bank Cards

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An Equifax Canada survey found that 53% of people in Canada have been victims of financial fraud. It is becoming increasingly easy for criminals to gain access to your financial information. If you are not aware of the ways that they can target you, you may find yourself dealing with fraud. 

Luckily, there are many simple steps you can take to avoid becoming a fraud victim!

Do you want to learn more about fraud prevention for your bank cards? Keep reading his guide for everything you need to know about fraud prevention techniques. 

Monitor Your Bank Statements

Monitoring your bank statements is one of the easiest ways you can prevent fraud. Keeping an eye on all of your accounts will allow you to see if there were any fraudulent purchases. 

You can even hire credit monitoring services! This way, you will get an alert if there is suspicious activity on your accounts. 

Even if you are the victim of fraud, regular monitoring will help you identify the fraud before it gets out of hand. It can also help you improve your financial situation and track your spending!

Understand Different Methods of Fraud

Learning more about the different types of fraud can also help you prevent fraud. Many criminals use the same methods to steal your information. 

One of the most common types of fraud is phishing. Phishing is a technique that tricks people into revealing their personal information and often targets bank information or credit card numbers. 

Typically, you will get an email, text, or phone call from a scammer. They may misrepresent themselves as a company that you know and trust in order to gain your personal information. 

However, reputable companies will never ask you for this information!

Another common method of fraud is skimming. Thieves can use devices that steal credit card numbers during a typical transaction. Then, they can use credit card information to conduct fraudulent transactions. 

Learning more about these methods can help you identify and prevent fraudulent activity.

Use Different Cards for Autopay Transactions

Something else that can protect you from fraud is to use different payment methods for your autopsy transactions and for your everyday spending. If you use the same card for all of your transactions, it may be more difficult to monitor your spending and identify fraud on your bank statements. 

Not only will it make it difficult to identify fraud, but it also makes it more difficult to recover if your account is breached. 

Using separate cards will ensure that you never have to change all of your payment information for autopay accounts. 

Avoid Public WiFi for Transactions

Something else that can help you prevent fraud is to avoid using public WiFi for any type of financial transaction. If you ever log into the WiFi at a restaurant, in a library, or even at the airport, it makes it easy for people to steal personal data.

This includes your usernames and passwords, banking information, and more. 

If you log into your bank account or if you make a transaction while using public WiFi, hackers can steal your information. 

Make sure you always avoid visiting websites that save your personal information when you use public WiFi. 

Improve Banking Security

Next, you must find ways to improve your banking security. While banks do their part to keep our information private, many people make it too easy for hackers and criminals to guess their banking information. 

For example, you may use the same password for many different websites. Strengthening all of your online passwords to make them unique and difficult to guess will protect your bank cards and bank accounts. 

Typically, it is best to include a random combination of letters, upper case and lower case letters, and even special characters in a password. 

While it may be difficult to remember dozens of unique passwords, this is one of the easiest things you can do to protect yourself from fraudulent activity. 

Similarly, you should always use two-factor authentication on your accounts. This adds an extra layer of security to all of your online accounts and will make it more difficult for hackers to gain access to your banking information. 

Lastly, you should always shred unwanted documents that have your personal information on them. If you get a bank statement that shows your credit card number, shredding it will keep criminals from accessing this information once you have thrown the document away. 

Trust Your Instincts

Finally, you need to trust your instincts when it comes to fraud prevention! Too often, people are too trusting with their personal information. Whether you provide your credit card information to someone on social media or you simply let someone else use your card, this can lead to fraudulent activity. 

Similarly, you may be too trusting and think that websites are trustworthy, even if they aren’t. If you ever feel like a website might be shady or that someone is trying to get your financial information, trust your instincts and keep your information private!

Need Help With Fraud Prevention?

With fraud becoming increasingly common, learning more about fraud prevention is necessary to protect your finances. Following each of these fraud prevention techniques will make it easier for you to identify fraud and avoid becoming a victim of fraud!

If you need help preventing fraud or learning more about different types of fraud, Kingcash can help! We provide free financial advice that can help you grow your savings and improve your finances. 

Check out our blogs for everything you need to know about how to be smart with money!

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