Financial institutions don't ask you to verify info by e-mail Senior fraud prevention 101
Was the world truly a more trusting place a generation or so ago? Statistics
actually say no, and crime peaked in North America when the baby-boomers were in
their peak crime-committing years. But crime and its face have changed in recent
years. More crime is happening at a computer keyboard. Seniors need to know
where to be trusting, and where to be wary.
"Phishing" is not fishing for fish, but for your personal information
Seniors and their savings are a fat, tempting target for scams. Crooks today
learn to steal using a computer. Police officers report that some of them absorb
their lessons while in jail. Assuming you wouldn't give your house keys or your
credit cards to perfect strangers, however they ask you, you shouldn't give the
"keys" to your bank and credit card accounts to strangers either.
The act of trying to steal user IDs, passwords and other information to allow
a criminal access your personal financial data is called "phishing."
The perpetrator's motives are pretty simple. Once the crook can get into your
financial accounts, he or she intends to spend your money, or simply transfer it
out of your account and steal it. Realizing that your savings have vanished
without your even being aware of it is as traumatic as having a weapon shoved in
your face by a physical criminal. The net effect is the same. Prevention and
common sense are the keys to protecting the savings you have worked your whole
life to gather.
Fraud today is considered by criminals to be a low-risk, high-profit way to
commit crime. The penalties for getting caught are not seen to be as high as the
rewards for success by crooks. Typically what a scammer seeks to do includes the
following:
Issue counterfeit cheques over your name, typically for amounts under
what your bank would call and ask about, in your name. This is still
hundreds, or thousands, of dollars per cheque;
Scam your credit or debit card number, so that the crook can literally
spend your money, just as if he or she had taken your wallet, but in much
larger amounts than people today typically carry in cash;
Identity and title theft, mortgage theft and improper use of power of
attorney to enable a crook to sell your house from under you. Ontario's Bill
152 has closed many of those loopholes.
Info about Bill 152, the Consumer
Protection and Service Modernization Act;
Seniors Crimestoppers has a toll-free line at 1-800-222-TIPS, (or
1-800-222-8477) to enable seniors to call and ask questions, or to
report a theft, or raise a concern.
Seniors are not as tech-aware as their grandchildren, and the type of common
sense instincts that today's generation of internet-surfing youth take for
granted are not familiar to older Canadians. It's a lot like having someone
raised on the farm explain to a 21st century, city-dwelling youth how to look
after a horse. You have no frame of reference.
Other tips to minimize your risk
Don't let your credit or debit card out-of-sight. Crooks can scan its
information quickly if they "accidentally-on-purpose" drop your card, or can
have it alone for a few moments. At gas stations, use your card right at the
pump;
Cover the keypad when you enter your access code. People can watch and
memorize or copy down your Personal Identification Number (PIN);
Don't give your card number to trades people, or to people you don't
know;
Don't throw away or recycle your financial information: tax returns;
credit card statements; bank statements; mortgage documents and so on;
Burn
or shred these papers. Shredders are cheap these days, and if something has
been run through a shredder or burned, you can be sure that it is truly
destroyed;
"Dumpster-diving," or stealing your discarded financial papers,
is an easy way to gather personal data to steal your identity;
Seniors should learn to do their banking online. You get the opportunity
to view your bank statements and balances daily if you wish. This way, if
someone is trying to access your account, you'll see it quickly;
There is no free lunch, and if something sounds too good to be true, it
almost certainly is. Never respond to spam, even to ask the sender to
stop sending it. Your e-mail back is evidence to a spammer that your e-mail
account is active, and then you can be sure to be on everybody's spam list. As
well, watch out for the usual e-mail frauds, such as:
Somebody sends you a polite letter claiming to represent someone else
from Africa, or somewhere else in the Third World. This e-mail requests your
help, and a generous commission, if you help the sender get money out of
Africa. They'll want you to send them money as deposits; fees;
guarantees and so on, and it will never stop. You are being scammed, and
you'll never see a cent;
An e-mail informs you that you've won a lottery in another
country. As yourself if you've ever been to that country, or can recall
buying such a ticket. You can't, and even if you did, the lottery vendor
doesn't now your e-mail address. Just hit the Delete key. You are being
scammed;
An e-mail looking just like your bank or card issuer, or from a retailer
asks you to verify your financial information. Nobody asks consumers
or users to do this. The scammer exactly duplicates a page on, for example,
a bank's web site, and probably a few pages linked to it, but the links all
go to the spammer's web site, and any information you may provide (which is
all personal financial data) goes directly to the spammer;
News about some penny stock urges you to buy now, because
something great is just about to happen. This scam is called
"pump-and-dump." The scammers buy up huge quantities of a penny stock, and
bombard the Internet with tens of millions of spam e-mails to see if they
can increase the stock price by even a penny or so. If so, they get huge
rewards, and you're holding worthless stock because there never was any such
miraculous development or discovery;
E-mails urge you to buy your new copy of Windows Vista or
Microsoft Office 2007, or other piece of premium, brand-name software
on-line at a huge discount. Don't do it. If you get any such
software, it is certain to be pirate versions of time-limited beta
(test-version) software, or hacked copies. You get no warranty, and no
ability to apply patches, service releases, fixes or upgrades. You'll also
likely infect your computer with the viruses that are epidemic among pirate
software.
In the years before I was elected, I did beta-testing for Microsoft, and
developed small business web sites. As a web developer, I am appalled at the
abuse of what promised to be a marvelous technology to bring the world together.
Now more than 90 percent of the e-mail I receive is junk. Your copy (legitimate)
of Microsoft Outlook allows you to designate e-mail accounts as "junk," and
Outlook will delete them as they arrive.
Other Resources
Microsoft offers plenty of good advice at their
Security at Home web site;