According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), nearly 1.5 Billion was lost to fraud in 2018 alone. The most common forms of fraud were scams, fake debt collectors and identity theft. You might think that it’s only the little old grandma that gets scammed out of money but the truth is that three times as many people in their 20s lose money than people in their 70s. The young and inexperienced fall prey to scams more often but for relatively less money – an average of $400 per event, while those in their 70s lose an average of $750 per fraudulent event, but far less often. It is possible that older individuals are simply less likely to report the fraud, and more likely to just take the lesson and move on. Or it could be that younger individuals are more likely to be active online, exposing themselves to more scams. Overall, according to the FTC in 2017, about 16% of the American population were victims of fraud. That means, of you and your six closest friends, one of you is going be taken advantage of financially in the next year. Will it be you?
It pays to take steps to protect yourself from the basics like identity theft and credit card skimmers. For the grey areas of everything else, your best bet is to be skeptical and verify everything before you trust anything. For example, don’t ever give out your personal data over the phone, or by text or email, unless you know with absolute certainty who you are transmitting it to and why. Anyone can claim to be anything. You have to become a more skeptical person. To begin any interaction with distrust is unpleasant. But these are the times we live in. That includes looking out for unauthorized billing, as well as all those text based scams and phone scams you have come to know and “love”.
Of course, if they cannot scam you out of it, they might just take it. It is a near certainty that your favorite credit card or debit card will be compromised at some point in the near future. One strategy is to simply assume that it will be compromised, and have a back up plan. For example, have a second card for a different account handy so that you can cancel the compromised card and still operate normally while the first card is replaced. Then, when the second card is compromised, return to the first account which now has a new card. Wash, rinse and repeat.
