Protect Yourself from Scams
This is a reminder to stay vigilant in protecting yourself against scams, especially around the winter holidays. If someone calls you, remember not to give out your Social Security number, credit card number, or any other personal information. If they’re asking for personal information and at any time you feel uncomfortable—hang up. You can always look up the real phone number from a statement or some other document you know is valid and call the company to inquire if the issue is real. If you gave personal information out over the phone, you can always change your website passwords and add two-factor authentication.
You should also check your credit report and definitely monitor all of your account activity. It would also be a good idea to freeze your credit. Freezing your credit is easy to do and, should you need someone to have legitimate access to check your credit, you can unfreeze or thaw your credit in an hour.
See Liz Gillette’s article, Unfreeze Your Credit in One Hour. And it’s Free. Earlier this year we reminded you that when the stimulus checks came out to remember that the IRS is not going to be giving you a call or text or email–that’s not how they transact with people. Hopefully, we’ll be seeing another round of stimulus checks so it’s important to keep this in mind–if someone calls you saying they’re from the IRS, that’s likely a scam. Similarly, there are still the robocalls going out alerting you that your Social Security number is going to be suspended or canceled. This is absolutely a scam. I keep getting a robocall telling me my auto insurance is expiring unless I act now.
That’s a good trick—I don’t even have a car. As we get wrapped up in the holidays and distracted by everything else in the news, please be careful and protect your identity, your information, and your money.
