Katie Farrington of Key Bank
All About Identity Theft
Katie Farrington, Relationship Manager at Key Bank, gave a great talk about credit and identity theft at our March 27th meeting. Here are some pointers:
- Make it a habit of reviewing your credit report. This site: http://www.annualcreditreport.com makes it easy
- Locking access to your credit information with the big three (Experian, Transunion, and Equifax) also known as 'freezing your credit,' is very proactive and does not affect use of credit. It only comes into play when you are applying for new credit (ed. note: In 2016, this simple step prevented six fraudulent credit card applications from being opened in my name!)
- Keep two checking accounts: A bill pay account, where you can have important automatic payments made and a working (day-to-day)account, where checks can be written from and smaller bills paid.
- Be careful making payments with Zelle and Venmo. They're convenient, but subject to fraud.
- Make sure the bank has your cell phone number so that they can easily contact you in case of potential fraudulent transactions
- Don't use your debit card - use a credit card.
- Look at your accounts frequently and set alerts
- Medical insurance fraud is on the rise. Check those monthly statements that you receive for any oddball transactions\procedures
Thank you Katie for an extremely informative session!