How To Protect Yourself From Fraud

With the amount of personal information being shared around in the Internet, it’s not surprising a lot of people fall victim to fraud. Fraudsters are experts in exploiting the information they find online to earn easy money. Millions of dollars are lost to scam artists yearly through fraudulent online transactions.

How to protect yourself from fraud starts with you. You can begin by carefully managing the personal information you make available online. You can also protect yourself by knowing about the different scams that are operating these days. This allows you to detect a scam before you become a victim.

Read articles about online fraud and learn from the experience of people who have been victimized by scam artists. Read about laws on fraud. Learn what anti-fraud crusaders do. There are many lawyers, like Howard Fensterman, who are active in the campaign against international fraud. Their stories will teach you how to fight fraud at your level.

Managing your personal information means keeping track of your accounts and being alert to any suspicious movement in your accounts. You should limit the exposure of your email addresses and other personal contact information. This will limit the amount of spam and phishing emails you will receive.

Be careful about inputting your personal contact information, like passwords and usernames, in Internet stations or public computer centers. Remember, hundreds of other people use these computers every day. Besides, you cannot be sure of the level of security these computers have. Never attempt to answer pop-ups and emails asking you for your personal information. If these mails and pop-ups have links, don’t click on them.

If an email has a website reference, access it by typing the address directly in your browser. Don’t cut and paste the address or click on the link provided by the email.

Make sure your computer unit has a security system in place and update it regularly. A firewall will protect you if you are online through broadband or cable. Anti-spyware and anti-virus software must be installed in your computer and update them regularly. A correct setting up of your wireless network is important. Don’t assume that your default settings will protect you. Always refer to your user manual.

Following these simple steps will help you greatly in protecting yourself from fraudsters.