Preventing Online Fraud and Other Scams
As March is Fraud Prevention Month, we are listing the top ways to prevent online fraud and other scams which have become more prevalent during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the Canada Competition Bureau, there was a 25% increase in reported scams within North America in 2020. Lockdowns moved shoppers from retail stores to the digital marketplace, so it’s no surprise that nearly 40% of these scams were associated with online shopping. The second most reported fraud in 2020 are employment scams. Job hunting was a particularly vulnerable area due to the many laid-off and furloughed employees whose businesses were negatively impacted by the pandemic. Here are the top ways to avoid becoming a victim of online fraud and other scams.
Top Ways to Prevent Online Fraud and Other Scams
- Use a passphrase rather than a password. What’s the difference? Passphrases are longer than passwords and contain several words and special characters strung together. This makes it much more difficult for a fraudster to hack into your account.
- Choose a unique passphrase for every account and enable multi-factor authentication whenever possible.
- Update the privacy settings for all of your apps. Many of the default settings enable apps to have access to your personal information, making you more susceptible to fraud.
- Phone and email scams are also becoming more common with most people spending more time at home and online. If someone contacts you claiming to be your bank or other service provider, contact the official phone number on their website to verify their identity. And never, ever provide your personal information (SIN, bank account numbers, passwords, etc.) to anyone who reaches out to you via phone, text message or email.
- Be wary of any fraudsters claiming to offer you employment by luring you with a high salary, or a job offer without an interview. Any jobs that seem too good to be true, probably are. Ask for their LinkedIn information to do a quick reference check before speaking to potential employers.
- Do not share your full address on your LinkedIn profile and online job boards, to avoid the danger of it getting into the wrong hands. Recent advice from career experts is to keep your home location generic (city and province) and to only provide your full address once you have the job offer in hand. The same goes for any of your social media accounts. The general rule is, share as little personal information online as possible.
There are simple actions you can take to protect yourself from online fraud and other scams. These steps will help you focus on more important things during the pandemic and keep your financial situation and personal environment safe.
