Tips To Keep Your Bank Account Secure

Every single day, people experience bank fraud, identity theft, and improprieties with their bank account. As technology and security measures are improved, the scammers seem to find ways to compromise consumers anyway.

Keeping your bank account safe should be the number one priority for you and your family. Getting your account hacked or your identity stolen can cause untold headaches and financial losses for years to follow. We hope that our tips below will help you decrease the risk of being one of the victims.

Preventing Bank Account Fraud

You should always be very conscious of security when doing any online banking, using an ATM, or shopping online.

Protect Your Passwords and PIN

Keep these numbers safe and private. Never give them out to anyone. Never write them down and keep them in your wallet or close to your computer. If you have problems keeping track of passwords, there are quite a few password applications that can assist with storage and secure password generation.

Make Passwords Complicated

You should never use codes that are easily guessed. Pet names, birthdays, anniversaries, and your mother’s maiden name are all too often far too easy for someone to figure out.

Use a mixture of numbers and letters or symbols to make it complicated and impossible to guess. But it needs to make sense to you so you will remember it. Again, if you need assistance with this, a password application can help.

Change Passwords Frequently

It is recommended that passwords be changed on a regular basis. A good guideline to follow is changing passwords on a quarterly basis. This will help make you a more difficult target for criminals that are constantly trying to decode or obtain your information.

Check Your Account Regularly

It’s important to review your accounts regularly, even the ones you may not use very often. Most security experts suggest looking for unfamiliar transactions or discrepancies on a monthly basis at a minimum. Anything that looks suspicious should be reported right away.

Avoid Public Computers and WiFi

Public computers, such as a library, could contain spyware or key loggers that can steal your login information. If you use a public, unsecure WiFi connection, it will not be safe either, so be careful what you do while using it. Do not sign into your accounts from these computers or networks since you can never be assured that someone else isn’t watching.

Cover Your PIN

People can detect your PIN number just by the sounds the keys make. Always be very vigilant of who is around you at the ATM. Also, look at the card slot to make sure it doesn’t look suspicious. Scammers can place skimmers over the card slot which can gather all your card information in seconds.

Never Click on Email Links

Emails that look like they came from your bank or other accounts like PayPal are phishing. They want you to click on links or attachments so they can load spyware on your device. An easy way to detect fraudulent emails is by looking at the domain in the email address. If the address is anything but the banks name followed by .com, be suspicious.

Never Give Your Account Info Over the Phone

We’ve all seen someone talking on their cell phone in public giving out too much information. People forget they can be heard. Talking to your bank on the phone in public can give a thief exactly the information they require.

Anyone could be listening or recording your information. Once they have it, it won’t take them long to start emptying your funds so keeping it private is the goal.

Trust Experts

Lending Bear takes security seriously. Our database applications and website adhere to the highest security standards to protect our customers. Our customer service agents are screened with a background check to insure they can be trusted. We regularly review our network, systems and process to insure they are safe and compliant with state requirements. The security of data is our number one goal.

Our agents will only ask for what is required to complete an application and will be completely transparent on what we do with that information. You can be sure we will not use your information for any other purpose without your consent.

Please follow this link for information on our security policies at Lending Bear.