How To Avoid Being A Credit Card Fraud Victim
Today, credit cards are used by 87% of the united states population. Unfortunately, when so many people are using something, there are a select few that learn how to take advantage of it. With that said, credit cards are no different. Along with the rise of consumers using credit cards has come a rise in the amount of fraud associated with credit cards. Con artists have a few slimy tricks that I feel you should be aware of.
First, using your credit card online can prove to be a mistake unless you are aware of the web pages security. Fortunately, because of the amount of credit card fraud, there have been a few precautionary steps taken on the internet. The biggest thing to look out for is security validation when entering your credit card number. If you are using internet explorer, you will see a padlock emblem on the bottom of your screen. When this padlock is open, this means that the web page you are on is not hosted from a secure server and you should not give any financial or personally identifiable information on this page. However, if the padlock is closed, this means that the page you are on is secure and you should be fine.
For those of us who don’t like to use internet explorer, there is another simple way to be able to tell if a web page is secure. When you visit any website, in the address bar of your browser, you will see http://www.website…. or https://www.website….. if the prefix is http://, this means that the page that you are on is not hosted from a secure server and you should not give your credit card information on this page. If the prefix is https://, this means that this is hosted from a secure server and your information is safe.
Another way that con artists are stealing credit card information is over the phone. A great deal of con artists are calling the elderly acting as a telemarketer. However, these telemarketers are anything but advertisers! They will try and sell you whatever they can to get that prized credit card information. A best practice to make sure you are not a victim of this type of scam is to not buy anything over the phone. Unfortunately, there is no way to tell if the person you are talking to is a legitimate telemarketer with a legitimate product. With that said, giving your credit card information over the phone will always come with a high level of risk.