Credit Card Fraud

The risks of credit fraud and identity theft are always present. From phishing scams, to spyware and the lack of proper security implemented by companies that handle consumer personal information, the odds are against us. In 2009 there were over 400 security breaches reported to the FTC and in 2010 there are 17 so far. These breaches expose consumer information in volumes and each day more and more people are discovering that they’ve been victimized by an identity thief.

The number of threats consumers face today are astounding, what’s worse, once the scam takes place, the victim may not notice the theft until months later. So what can you do to ensure your personal information stays safe?

One of the first steps to get started is to monitor your credit report. Your personal credit files are kept by the 3 major credit bureaus in the US. The information they record include:

• The companies that granted you credit
• Third parties that have made credit inquiries about you
• Third parties that have reviewed your credit
• Payment and timeliness information (payment history)
• Past addresses for the last 10 years.
• Jobs you’ve held in the last 10 years

Guidelines for monitoring your credit:

Keeping track of your credit report and what appears on it regularly, will prove a huge benefit and a great way to stay ahead of identity thieves. Here are some guidelines to be most effective.

1. Check all 3 of your credit reports: You’ll find that there are significant gaps and differences in how your credit is seen by each of the major bureaus. A certain account might show in one but not the other, so it’s essential you compare information across all three reports.
2. Monitor your credit reports quarterly: You can check your credit free once a year, and although that’s better than nothing, it isn’t frequent enough to detect fraud and stop the damage. Checking your report once every quarter is the most ideal way to keep on top of what’s going on with your personal credit file and catch identity thieves and stop credit fraud before it becomes a bigger problem.
3. Look for suspicious activity: When reviewing your credit report you’ll notice and recognize accounts that are familiar to you, like your Visa card from Chase, or that car loan you’re still paying off. Your job is to take a close look at every single account reported on all 3 of your credit reports and find anything that looks suspicious or inconsistent when compared to your other reports. Look at inquiries made and find out who they are and why they’re inquiring about your when you have not recently applied for credit.

Keeping on top of it proactively and consistently is the most effective way to keep safe from credit fraud and other identity theft threats. However, it may seem a little inconvenient and time consuming, if this is you, consider credit monitoring services or full blown Identity Theft Protection services.

These automated systems will alert you automatically when changes to any of your credit reports occur, and depending on which service you sign up for, the coverage can be very sophisticated and certainly takes the burden of your hands.

Credit fraud is perhaps the most common form or identity theft and the easiest to commit. Every year millions of Americans and Europeans are victimized by scammers the world over. These savvy criminal/hackers are a tight circle and trade information constantly on online black markets, where hundreds of thousands of credit cards and social security numbers are found.

Credit card fraud can be prevented with the help of credit monitoring services, but for those who are not yet signed to these services, you have rights under the law if you become a victim or credit fraud.

1. First thing you must do is get a police report filled out. Many states won’t have a specific law for this, but you must be persistent, as this report will entitle you to the following:

• A 7 year fraud alert
• A credit freeze
• Have inaccurate or fraudulent data blocked from your credit reports
• Get copies of all transactions records on fraudulent accounts

2. You have the right to have those fraudulent accounts removed from your credit report once you have gathered the necessary evidence about the fraud, including any collections notices or inquiries.

How to organize your credit fraud case:

• Keep a detailed log of your time and efforts, including all phone calls you receive or make, including names of people you talk to, their titles, phone numbers, company name and notes about the conversation.
• Mail all correspondence certified with a return receipt requested to confirm it has been delivered. Keep the postcards you receive back as evidence.
• Get confirmation of all conversations and agreements in writing, people leave companies all the time and that person may not be around to see that agreement through.
• Maintain an expense log, where you record the time and money you’re investing into resolving your credit fraud case.

3. Work with the right people. You’ll waste a lot of time if you hire or talk to the wrong people about your case. Insist on speaking with someone on the fraud or investigative side of a company or government agency. Customer service is never the right place to start discussing your credit fraud problem.

If your case is beyond credit card fraud and it involves other aspects of your identity, check the resources listed on the Identity Theft Victims page.

Once your case is resolved and your credit report is back to a healthy status, consider a solid identity theft or credit monitoring service that can provide advanced credit fraud alerts to help you act quickly.

The scanning technology employed by some of these providers is outstanding, being able to detect subscriber information on illegal information trading sites is one of the best benefits of the service.

How to protect your credit:

Taking a proactive and consistent approach to protecting your credit means understanding and accepting the responsibility for it. Making payments on time and never cutting corners or compromising when it comes to the security of your credit cards, bank accounts, and every other aspect of your personal identity.

These points may sound obvious but are often ignored by consumers, and it is when we let our guard down that we create chances for identity thieves to take advantage of our smallest mistakes to earn themselves a big payday. Protecting your credit involves a significant time investment from you, but is is part of the responsibility of being issued credit.

Minimizing the Risks of Fraud

Credit card fraud is one of the most common and most lucrative crime trends. It’s also one of the easiest to do and get away with, and the hardest to detect without the proper credit monitoring in place. Identity thieves are opportunistic and use phishing, skimming, and dumpster diving as methods of digging for key pieces of information such as your social security number, credit card numbers, csv verification numbers and anything they can use to either abuse your existing credit accounts or open new ones under your name.

Victims of credit fraud are often left with the daunting task of restoring their credit and their good names at a significant cost of both time and money. Here’s how you outsmart the scammers and minimize your risks for credit fraud.

1. Pay close attention to your billing cycles – contact your credit card company or bank if your statements do not arrive when they should.
2. Watch out for mail fraud – redirecting mail is very easy to do, know when your statements should arrive and do your best to secure your mail box with a lock. Never leave mail unattended and use a cross-cut shredder to destroy junk mail that contains your personal information.
3. Password protect everything – take advantage of additional security features offered by your credit provider or bank, such as password protection. Many people often see these extra steps as a burden rather than a benefit and this is letting your guard down.
4. Protect your personal information – you need to be cautious about who you give your information to, always know who you’re dealing with. Phone, email and snail mail phishing scams are still around because they still work, millions of people in the US fall victim to these each year.
5. Leave your SSN card at home – it’s a common habit to carry everything you may one day need with you in your wallet, it’s also a big mistake and an easy way to lose a lot of critical personal information at once. Your SSN is one of the most valuable pieces of information an identity thief can get their hands on, it means an easy pay day.
6. Shop securely online – when shopping online make sure you’re only doing it on secured sites. Make sure the address starts with https:// and look for the lock symbol somewhere in the footer of your browser, or the SSL (secure socket layer) text somewhere on the page.
7. Consider credit monitoring and/or identity theft protection – protecting against credit fraud and identity theft isn’t a fun job at all. The most convenient and practical way to protect your credit is to automate the process with these services. It’s instant peace of mind.

Hacking and farming financial information is very profitable to those who know how. However your stolen credit card number can be sold for cheap on the black market.

The black market is a busy place where the data that’s acquired by hackers via security breaches is traded daily. Kapersky Labs reports that the credit card numbers traded at these sites are sold at very attractive prices. Credit cards are priced by origin, for example stolen credit cards from Germany would sell for $6, while US credit cards for around $2.

There are only a handful of these sites around and they’re obviously not easily found, it’s a very tight circle, these sites aren’t at all marketed, those who know how to find them are repeat customers. They even have customer support in both English and German.

How does your stolen credit card number end up at these sites? Well it all happens online, for the consumer it may start with viruses and spyware that end up on a user’s PC. These infections are designed to spy on the user’s activities while online, they capture user name and password information for credit card and banking sites.

Security Breaches occur when hackers successfully penetrate security layers from companies that have large databases of consumers information that store information such as social security information and credit card numbers. These breaches occur hundreds of times a year exposing critical information and costing consumers and companies billions of dollars every year.

If you suspect your information has been exposed by a breach, or a virus or spyware on your system, report stolen credit cards and keep a close eye on your balances, and get your fraud alerts activated as soon as possible. A stolen credit card is not always easily recognized, people who actually use your credit card number may be cautious about how they spend your money, so studying your statements carefully is absolutely necessary.

If you want to properly prevent identity theft and the consequences of it, credit monitoring is a good way to get started, this protects your credit cards, debit and share check, and banking accounts from fraud.

Other more advanced identity theft systems like Trusted ID and LifeLock offer a more broad range of features to monitor different aspects of your identity. Identity theft is complicated and its prevention even more involved, so the services of such companies are the best way to automate the process.

Everyone needs to be aware at all times that their credit card information is properly secured. Credit card protection can be done by the individual with a number of measures that include simple and consistent practices.

Some of these practices include:

• never giving out credit card information over the phone
• never responding to email or phone phishing scams
• never lending your credit card to anyone
• shopping online with secure sites only
• always keep track of where your cards are
• only carry the card that you need in your wallet and put away the ones you hardly ever use
• always submit credit card information with caution
• know who you’re dealing with at all times

Credit card protection can also be automated through special services that make it easier to set up and receive credit card fraud alert notices and even insure the card holder against heavy losses sometimes incurred due to misuse and identity theft.

The biggest danger to consumers today is not their own carelessness, it’s the data loss that occurs during security breaches. Companies that handled credit card information today have a huge problem securing consumer information. The high cost of technology and overhead of maintaining this information makes it challenging and the attempts from hackers to penetrate these systems to obtain this information is a constant threat.

Credit card protection services or credit monitoring services provide a good level of security for ensuring the card owner does not become a victim of identity theft. Credit information is all too easily available from too many sources and in many cases credit card numbers along with social security numbers are made available on black market sites where this information can be traded for money.

Credit fraud will always be a popular trend because it is always lucrative and easy to get away with. To get the credit card protection you need now and stay in charge of your credit, consider the services of identitylookout.com, also receive a 30-day trial of their identity theft protection service.