Category: Money

Finance and money category.

5 Common Credit Card Scams That You Should Watch Out!

Scams are pretty much on every corner of the planet! Its like they are a part of the economy. Scammers are everywhere just waiting for you, waiting for an opening then they will strike. Some scammers will do their heist personally. They just sit on their chair and use a computer with internet and they can scam anybody so naïve just like you. The scam I am about to share to you is about credit card scams. Here are the five common credit card scams that you need to be aware off and easily prevent you from losing money.

Credit card scams mean when the hackers stole the card information through several methods or schemes that the naïve victim fall into. Hackers have high-tech knowledge of taking third party information well such as your credit card information that involves your name, credit card number, the CVV code and expiration date. Which all the information needs to start using your credit card.

Scammers uses the credit card and making legitimate purchases and making any payments online or even shopping locally if they have copied your whole credit card. Hundreds if not thousands fall trap on these credit card scams.

You should be glad that banks are upgrading their security system and providing their users a better and more secure banking experience such as enabling two-factor authentication method when buying something, they are hiring investigators to easily detect if anyone tries to hack the bank accounts’ information.

Here are the top 5 Credit Card Scams and How You Can Avoid Them

INFO

In 2019 more than 3$ million worth of credit card scams has been reported worldwide and 2.7$ million on the year before. That only means that these scammers are getting better on what they do. Without further ado here’s the top 5 most common credit card scams and we’ll help you avoid them.

Credit card or save up to a certain extent when the person uses the card with proper safety. Till today thousands of scams have taken place. Nowadays, people use credit cards at several places like while shopping online, purchasing online games, etc. The hacker installs software at different websites, which helps them to provide all the information.

The Top Five Credit Card Scams

1
Fake Shopping Website

Fake Shopping Website
Login into account in email envelope and fishing for private financial account information. Vector concept of phishing scam, hacker attack and web security

Hackers create their shopping websites and offer various discounts to attract customers. This is one of the most common credit card scams that every user can run into.

The primary purpose of making the website is to hack the card information of online shoppers. It is one of the simplest ways to create a scam and many falls for it. Especially women where they are so naïve with online hacking / scamming activities. The online payment technology has made payment easy but has also given rise to hacking.

Many people save their credit card information on an online website to make transactions in the future easily. The team of hackers steals the collected data. The person should prioritize cash on delivery instead of using credit cards. 

How to Avoid This Scam

Do not use your personal credit card when purchasing on unknown shopping website. Use cash on delivery method instead if they offer it. Otherwise, just forget about the website.

Before you use your personal credit card try using a fake credit card number with details first.

2
Fake WIFI connections

Many hackers trace the wifi details and try to hack personal information. Always buy products from genuine websites using only your trusted internet connection such as your own phone data. Or your own internet data device. They just connect to a FREE WIFI establishment as you do not know whose reading your data transmitted.

Be attentive while choosing WIFI network because it may cause a significant loss to the account holder.

How to Avoid This Scam

This scam is pretty easy to avoid. One should not connect to any untrusted WIFI network like the WIFI on your favorite café. Now, if you do not have a choice and need to connect to it. Then just use it with normally and do not buy anything online using that WIFI network. Browse the internet, check your social media accounts, update your Instagram account etc. Just remember do not input sensitive information such as your credit card information or login password.

3
Online Gaming Websites

Many people love playing games online. A lot of these games has their own monetary system that you can buy using real money and purchase your favorite item or character on the game. Avid players tempted to buy and eventually when they do they enter their credit card details to buy the game or credits or gold of their favorite game.

This method is fairly similar with the fake shopping website. Hackers target online gamers since some of them are just kids that uses their parents credit card which make them perfect victims.

How to Avoid This Scam

1. Now, if you are reading this meaning you are an adult with a credit card most probably. Don’t let anyone, yes anyone including your kids borrow your credit card or hide it somewhere where your kids cannot get access to it.
2. Buy only on legitimate websites.

4
Phone Call Frauds

Credit Card Scam Phone Call
Senior woman using phone while holding credit card.

Phone calls fraud is the simplest way to ask the information from the account holder. Hackers place the fake call and ask for the card details by creating a bewildering conversation game to the victim. Sometimes they lie to the users that their account is getting close, so if they will ask for your credit card information to avoid that from happening and the naïve victim provides the information.

The victim just handed out his / her credit card details and then minutes later you found out there has been a $5,000 worth of online purchase using your credit card.

How to Avoid This Scam

One should never share any sensitive information from your credit card. Even if they introduced their selves as someone from your bank. Even your bank will tell you to not share any information to any of their employees.

5
Game Account Hacking Scam

The scam / hacker will hack players game ID and password I don’t know how they could hack your game profile such as your Steam account but assuming that they do, they will use your saved credit card details and make another game purchase and send those details on their own accounts. The same card details are used to purchase other games.

The hacker keeps using the card until the balance gets to zero. The young generation is more into online games, so they need to keep their card details safe.

How to Avoid This Scam

One should avoid putting or saving credit card details for purchasing games from unknown sources.

Conclusion

Nowadays, one should be careful when making purchases using their credit cards and protecting their identity online. Many hackers have evolved and are better on what they do. Making fake websites is one thing. They are not only creating shopping websites but also making video games that attract kids. Some don’t even need to leave their house just to scam somebody. Children have the least knowledge of credit cards. Everyone should be responsible enough on their finances.

Taking care of your credit card is one of those. Go here for more detailed tips and tricks to avoid credit card scams. I hope you learn something and enjoyed the reading.

10 Simple But Effective Tricks To Protect Your Credit Card Online

Earning money is hard but losing money in your credit card is even harder. Each day the cases of financial fraud continually increases. In that manner, credit card holder must arm themselves with knowledge on how they are going to protect your credit card online.

According to ShiftProcessing.com there has been 24Billion Dollars in losses because of credit card fraud worldwide in 2018. 39% of those fraud came from the USA and those number are not stopping their.

There has been a rise of credit card payments online this year. 69% of fraud starts with a consumer being done by phone alone. But worry not here are the simple steps you could do right now to include you from these numbers. Now here are the 8 most basic tricks you can make to protect your credit card from online predators.

The following are 8 tips to protect your credit card details online:

Learning the Basic

In life or even when it comes to protecting our credit cards, before we can proceed any further, we need to learn first the basic. These includes securing your phone, personal computers as well as your connection to the internet. Making sure that your operating system is up to date and putting strong password in your device are also part of the basic things you need to know.

Basic Security

  • Have an updated Anti-virus software on your PC – having an anti-virus software blocks 99% of attacks! Make sure to have one!
  • Make sure to only connect to a trusted WIFI connection when you are away from your home or own data connection.
  • Don’t let anyone unknown use your mobile phone. They could be hackers you know!
  • Always update your PC / Laptop with the latest security enhancements. Windows always release those updates.

#2. Keeping Account Number Private

Thief always look for ways to get hand on your credit card number. To get rid of this you need to keep your card private especially when you’re out in public. Do not make transactions over the phone where it involves giving your account number or personal information. Although it’s coming from reputable company, still you can’t trust anyone.

  • Don’t share your account number to anyone. Especially online when you don’t trust the transaction.
  • Don’t take a picture of your credit card and show it online!

#3 Use Fake credit card details on Untrusted websites

This is probably the most sneaky method on how you can hide your financial details on untrusted websites. The use of fake credit cards are very common among people who are deeply aware of the dangers of use of your real credit card details and entering it on a random website which you are not even sure if its a legit website. There are numerous websites offering this kind of credit card details. Among of which are the following trusted websites:

Generate random credit card details using the following websites:

#4 Updating information from time to time

If you happen to change any single information such as your phone number or email address, always make sure to check if your account is also up to date. It is important to know if your account still follow your recent address and provides you notification of its movement. Signing up for fraud alerts can also be a good idea to give you updates of whatever happening in your account. This way, if anything goes wrong you will be aware and can make actions quickly.

  • Update your mobile number for more secured transaction. Often banks will ask you if you have an updated mobile number.
  • Enable two-factor authentication so that every transaction you will get double the verification.

#5 Minimizing online shopping and Payment accounts

Online shopping

Due to the increase of higher technologies and scarcity of time, people are well-satisfied shopping and paying bills online through the help of their mobile phones and computers. However, you need to do it safely because the chip cards have fraudsters’ online, waiting to steal and raid your bank accounts. It’s not easy to get rid of online shopping since it become a regular routine particularly to women but in when it comes to  making  your account safe, limiting  yourself from online shopping can be of help. If in case this thing is hard for you, just try to select shop with big retailers and watch out for fake sites.

  • Don’t shop on untrustworthy websites.
  • Don’t use your credit card right away.

#6. Changing Passwords Regularly

Changing passwords regularly

One way of protecting your credit card details is putting a hard- to -provoke passwords on your account. Using common passwords like “I love you”,”000”,”123” or even passwords that has connection to your personal information like your birthdate and year are not advisable. It would be better also if you consider getting Password Manager to generate strong passwords and Password Checker to regularly check your password.

#7. Adding up another layers of security

Aside from typing your password anytime you’ve got to have transactions, it’s highly recommended to set up multi-factor authentication into your accounts. Meaning, you can enter code that is connected to your phone number or email address to verify and validate process in your account.

#8. Creating alerts on your accounts

Have an alert on your credit card

Every companies who issue credit cards offers free account alerts, make sure to at least avail one. This can be beneficial to you in providing safety usage of your credit card. For instance, you can set a text or email alert for any purchase in any amount or any time you make use of your card.

#9 Applying safely any credit card offers

As part of fraud acts, there are a lot of messages sent in your email account. This include offers that targets your bank account. Before considering any of it, it’s best to call or visit your card issuer to have some advice. You can also choose not to respond to offers via emails, but if you are really interested with the offer, do the research and check its background features and reliability.

#10 Checking credit reports

The best way to protect your account and making sure no new accounts have been opened in your name by other people is to check your credit report regularly. This is essential for the reason that it will give you timely updates and records happening in your account.

There are many ways on securing your credit card details online but most of it comes from intelligence coupled with someone’s common sense.

Google Expands to Banking – to Offer Checking Accounts in 2020

The Wall street Journal reports about Google’s biggest plan to provide banking and financial services starting early next year. Specifically, it will offer checking accounts for its customer.

Google name the upcoming projects “CACHED”. It will be partnering with banks (Citibank) and small credit union at Stanford to offer the checking accounts and the City bank to handle all financial activities that has relevance to the accounts.

Caesar Sengupta, general manager and vice president of payments at Google spoke to WSJ the initiative and made clarification to profoundly collaborate with banks and financial system.

“Our approach is going to be a partner deeply with banks and the financial system”.

Caesar Sengupta

 It will be seeking to put financial partners focusing and concerning the needs of the customer unlike other tech companies.

“If we can help more people do more stuff in a digital way online, it’s good for the internet and good for us”, he added.

He also noted that loyalty card programs can be one of the offers of the said service. It is also considering to whether ask or not charge service fees. The checking accounts bear enormous amount of valuable data about the consumer spending and how much they are earning. However, Google clarifies that selling to advertiser the checking account of financial data is never be possible. It doesn’t also use Google Pay data for advertising purposes.

Google’s plan is anchored to the desire of reaching the needs for its average user. Google has render couple of years to put into reality their so called Google Pay Services. This search giant reach its popularity with over 67 million users a month to countries like India. It became helpful to people to pay every purchase they will have and send money to friend through online all over the world. However, Big Tech companies like Facebook is also offering a pay option in its all platforms named Facebook Pay and soon to build their own digital currency called “Libra “with its partners in banking services. Early this year, Apple Incorporation paired with Goldman Sachs, launch their Apple Card. Even Amazon expectedly describe to offer teenager checking accounts. These tech companies eagerly interested in putting up financial services.

This push Google to enter this kind of aspect in life. This initiative appears to be looking out millennial and more digital savvy customers who are more comfortable in making their lives easier through online tools. Furthermore, they will also benefit from Google’s competence in working with large sets of data and turning it into Value-Added products.

Google comes in the long run and already established its popularity. But still, convincing people to tune in this Google’s latest plan is quite challenging on their part especially because of political and social competition among big tech companies. Thus, there are also who wonder how these big tech companies use their vast digital heft in other areas like business and economic infrastructure.

How To Protect Your Identity Online

Imagine getting suspicious looks while you are on the street. All of a sudden someone comes to you and charges you of sending inappropriate messages to them. It may even be someone you know.

Then, you remember that your social media account got hacked recently and you have no idea what has been going on in there. A nightmare, isn’t it? However, such cases are quite common these days.

Hackers can do almost anything if you are not careful enough. In fact, even if hackers do not want your information, you can give it to them by not being careful enough. This is why you need to know how to protect your identity online.

Getting social media accounts hacked is not as bad as a criminal knowing your bank information. However, there are many times when you have to type such sensitive information online.

Criminals are using more and more advanced methods to hack your personal information. The least you can do is know how to protect yourself. So, here are a few tips on how you can hide your identity.

How To Protect Your Identity Online: What you can do.

Keep your Devices Safe From Unauthorized People

Unathorized people accessing your data

If you leave your phone or laptop unprotected here and there it is like an invitation to your hacker. Therefore, the first thing you should assure is that your phone or laptop does not get in the hands of someone who can be harmful.

Secondly, there are times when you cannot help but lend your devices. For such cases, you can password protect your devices. Apparently, passwords are quite easy to crack as well. As a result, a better choice would be to use a form of biometric authentication like a fingerprint, face recognition or iris recognition.

Do not leave your phone and laptop here and there because what you kepe there and kept there will always be there and hackers will get to it.

Generate A Fake Identity Online

Did you know that you can easily generate fake identity online without getting on hard coding skills? There are websites that offers free fake identity generator software. These software automatically a random identity or the identity per users chosen info.

Use Anti-Virus and Other Protection Software

antivirus software to protect your device

Right after you got your laptop or desktop make sure it has a working fully activated anti-virus software. This is a must-have tool and number 1 on your software list to install. The internet is a vast place and it exposes you to a lot of bad things as well. On top of it, if your computer or phone does not have a protector to fight all these then you will be gone long before you know it.

You are basically exposing yourself in the internet if you don’t have an anti-virus software. Anti-Virus software is a must for any phone or computer. Without it, your information is like a dessert without a cover.

This peace of software will alert you when a virus is trying to infect your device, and will automatically remove anything malicious in its eyes.

Keep your Privacy Settings in Check.

privacy settings

Have an endless number of accounts online and cannot keep track of which password you used for which? Did you end up using the same password for every one of them? Not cool.

This is how you do not just expose one account to your hacker but everything that you have. Your bank information, credit information, etc. Because if your hacker figures out one, he figures out the rest.

Therefore, never use one password for all the accounts. Moreover, never use something others can totally establish with you. Use punctuation, numbers, and letters in your password to make it as strong as you can. Also, make it long.

Apart from that, always check your privacy settings. This will cover things like who can see what and more. You can also control which devices can have access to your account and which will need authentication.

For example, if you set this, FaceBook sends you a code to your email or phone to confirm that the login was by you.

Never Click Suspicious Looking Links or Images

suspicious links and images

This is a huge one. Most of your information goes to the hacker when you click an unprotected link that you trusted too easily. You may get these links in your email, messages or anywhere on the internet.

But, never click directly on it. You can try typing the website name to find the website yourself if you need to. That is a much safer way to not give your information to hackers. Here are some examples of a click bait https://adespresso.com/blog/clickbait-facebook-advertising-examples/ . Now, I am not telling that all click-baits are suspicious I’m just telling most of them are. LOL

Click Bait Explanation

Don’t Fall for Phishing Hackers.

Phishing personal data

You will often receive emails from sites or profiles that just seem authentic. It might be a store asking for your information or even a bank. Yes, a bank as well. See how dangerous things can get? Phishers are actually getting smarter day by day. As the world progress so they are. Thankfully, we have antivirus software that detects most of them. Yes, “most” of them and not all of them! There are some very clever phishers out there.

Email Phishers

If these emails make you visit a site and then provide information then just do not. Go to website yourself by typing the address. This is quite a common scenario when you are paying online. Be very careful because this is how most information gets leaked.

Be Careful When Paying Online.

paying line with credit card

You do not even have to physically go to the mall nowadays to buy what you need. All you have to do is select from the list online and pay for things, even bills. However, you do not want to find your account all empty suddenly one day, do you?

But, you are giving your credit or debit card information online and that is a huge risk. There are even fake sites that demand it from you and boom! You are the most vulnerable citizen. However, you can combat this problem by first, never clicking on links.

TIP: Check the address. Always give your information only on sites with https rather than HTTP. The extra ‘S’ is for security. So, https is definitely more secure than other sites.

If you don’t totally want to get involve on a suspicious looking website but wanted to try anyway, you can try adding a randomly generated credit card complete with fake details here. Now, these credit card numbers aren’t real at all but you can try them though.

Always be aware.

Chances are if you are unaware, your bank account is getting empty without you even knowing it. This is why you need to be aware all the time about things going wrong. For example, you may be receiving weird texts or messages.

This might imply that something is being done from your account. On the other hand, it is essential you check your credit card usage as often as necessary. If you find any purchase or withdrawal you cannot account for, it’s time to consult with experts.

Among death and many other things, one of the greatest fears of today’s world is being a victim online. However, like you take precautions against the fears, the precautions against online hackers are more effective. This is why take the necessary steps to protect your identity online and let the rest be.

Chances are with you knowing how to protect your identity online, you are free from online crimes itself.