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How to avoid mistakes with online bill payments
Money Tips

How to avoid mistakes with online bill payments

by Rod Spurgeon
written by Rod Spurgeon

Donny sat down at his desktop computer at the end of the month as usual and began the process of paying his bills. Time was not on his side this day as his favorite football team prepared to take the field in 20 minutes. Soon, his friends would arrive to watch the game with him on television, and he still had to prepare game time snacks.

With his mind on the upcoming event, Donny quickly moved through the bill payment motions. He opened up a web browser and sent one payment after another, including electricity, gas, water, telephone, and then finally his Internet bill. Excitement for the upcoming game filled his mind as he prepared to make his last payment. He was almost there, nearly ready to jump into game mode and have a blast with his buddies.

Donny rapidly typed in his password, made a mistake, retyped his password again, and zoomed straight to the payment section of his Internet account. He saw the amount due, hastily typed that amount into the appropriate box, and tapped send.

Without wasting another moment on mundane tasks, Donny shut down his browser and dashed off to the kitchen to prepare his snacks. He enjoyed the game with his friends that day, and it was all the more satisfying when their team won. Several days later, Donny received a text message from his bank informing him that he had overdrawn funds from his checking account. Donny knew he had more than enough money in the account to handle his bills, so he investigated the problem. That’s when he discovered he had accidentally sent $5,127 to his Internet service provider instead of the $51.27 amount due. How to avoid mistakes with online bill payments

In his haste, Donny forgot to add the decimal point to the amount he typed into the computer, and he ended up sending 100 times more than he owed to the company. Donny was now broke, and he had to wait two weeks to get his funds returned from the company.

Whenever you sit down to pay the bills, keep the following three things in mind:

  • Make sure you have the time you need to examine billing statements thoroughly before making a payment. If you have a pressing appointment and need to make a payment in a hurry to meet that time sensitive obligation, wait to make the payment until you’re no longer under that pressure.
  • Verify the amount you type into the computer before clicking send. Compare the figure you enter into the payment system with the amount owed. Do the numbers match? Is your decimal point in the correct location? Are you withdrawing funds from the correct account? Double or triple check your payment details before tapping the send button.
  • Consider setting up automatic payments. Electricity, water, gas, Internet and many other service providers generally invite their customers to set up automatic bill payments. It guarantees that customers will make their payments on time, and it prevents customers from making mistakes in the bill payment process. If you choose this option, be sure to check your billing statements regularly to confirm their accuracy.

Never let haste to “get it over with” cause you to overpay a bill. Take the time you need to verify all amounts thoroughly and review your bill regularly. It will help make sure that game day doesn’t turn into a financial fumble. How to avoid mistakes with online bill payments

How to avoid mistakes with online bill payments

How to avoid mistakes with online bill payments How to avoid mistakes with online bill payments How to avoid mistakes with online bill payments How to avoid mistakes with online bill payments How to avoid mistakes with online bill payments How to avoid mistakes with online bill payments

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How to Budget Online Holiday Spending
Money Tips

How to Budget Online Holiday Spending

by Rod Spurgeon
written by Rod Spurgeon

Five things you can do now to avoid post-holiday blues How to Budget Online Holiday Spending

Online shopping has made the holidays considerably easier to manage in recent years. No longer do shoppers have to elbow their way through massive crowds in shopping centers, wait in seemingly mile-line long lines to check out, and inch through enormous parking lot logjams at a snail’s pace. Instead, it takes far less time to click away on one site after another, loading up carts and checking out in about as much time as it takes to make a cup of coffee. With so many benefits, is there really a downside to online shopping? How to Budget Online Holiday Spending
Absolutely. How to Budget Online Holiday Spending
The ease of online shopping comes with a serious drawback – overspending. Internet-based stores can blast shoppers with an avalanche of unavoidable ads, special deals, and deep discounts to entice customers to spend more than they might have at a brick and mortar store. Special discount codes, digital timers, and tempting recommendations attract shoppers and lure them down the spending rabbit hole.
Overspending can blow your budget, increase your debt load, and make you miserable after the holidays as you figure out how to pay for everything. Instead, use the following tips to help keep your purchases on target and within your budget: How to Budget Online Holiday Spending

  1. Create a budget for holiday gift purchases. Do this by finding out exactly how much cash you can spend without going into debt or hurting your ability to pay your monthly expenses.
  2. Spread out your holiday dollars among the people on your shopping list. If it’s $5 per person, stick to that target without going over.
  3. Identify what you want to buy for each person and make a list. A list doesn’t have to be complex. Grab a simple piece of paper and a pen and write down who gets what:
    1. Jane – book
    2. Bob – movie
    3. Jill – box of tea
    4. Barry – home baked cookies
  4. Go to a website that has the items you’re looking for. If while shopping you find something more expensive you think a person on your list might like, avoid it and find something that matches your list. Reminder – stick to your budget.
  5. Don’t click on anything other than what you intend to buy. Websites are littered with special deals and interesting items to get you to spend more. Don’t fall for it! Buy what you went to the site to get and move on. Reminder – stick to your budget.

If you use a credit card to do your online shopping, don’t make the mistake of blowing your budget just because you have the available credit. Your budget gives you’re the maximum amount of money you can spend without hurting you financially. Here’s a spending trick to try – think of debt as pain. The more debt you have, the more pain you’ll feel trying to pay it off. How to Budget Online Holiday Spending
When you do your shopping for the holidays, use the five simple tips above to avoid overspending. It will give those on your shopping list the gifts they’ll love while keeping a healthier bank account for yourself.
How to Avoid Package Scammers
How to Avoid Mistakes with Online Bill Payments

How to Budget Online Holiday Spending

How to Budget Online Holiday Spending How to Budget Online Holiday Spending How to Budget Online Holiday Spending How to Budget Online Holiday SpendingHow to Budget Online Holiday Spending

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Three tips to avoid malicious email links
Tech Support

Three tips to avoid malicious email links

by Rod Spurgeon
written by Rod Spurgeon

Criminals do their best to mask their intentions. One of the tricks they use is to mask a fraudulent website with something innocent or difficult to decipher. Three tips to avoid malicious email links
If a fraudster convinces a person to open an email scam, that’s half the battle. The other half is convincing that same person to click on a malicious link. One way to accomplish that goal is to add a “skin” to a link to make it look like something else. Three tips to avoid malicious email links
A skin changes the look of an underlying asset. Vehicles would look very different without a top layer of paint, or skin, which protects the metal beneath. The same is true for websites.
When a criminal adds a skin to a website, it changes the look of the asset. A website called robyoublind.com can have a skin that changes its identity to friendlylocalbank.com. How do they accomplish this? Test this example below: Three tips to avoid malicious email links
We’ll use the fake website http://wintersolsticebank.com as an example. If you receive an email alerting you to a potential fraudulent attack on your bank account with Winter Solstice Bank, you might be tempted to click the link provided in the email to change your password. If you clicked the link above, it didn’t direct you to the banking website, but rather the website http://ownyourdefense.net.
There is a way to see the true website a link will direct you to. If you hover your mouse cursor over the link, the true destination will appear on your screen, either on the lower left portion of your web browser or other location depending on the software you use. Never click a link unless you know precisely where it will take you.
While this technique is useful, it doesn’t work when a criminal uses a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) shortening service. A URL is just another name for a website address, so don’t let the techy name throw you off.
TinyURL, bitly, Ow.ly and other website shortening services offer a valuable way to transform painfully lengthy links into short, easy to manually type into a browser, and far more aesthetically pleasing links. Fraudsters might sometimes use these services to mask their malicious websites.
A criminal could use a website shortening service to modify the appearance of a website such as http://ripyouoffnow.com to look like something less threatening such as http://shortlinksite.com/dfg732. Hovering a cursor over a website that is shortened by such a service will show the address of the shortened link, not the ultimate destination address.
To pierce the veil of ambiguity and see where a shortened link will lead, right click on the link in your email, select Copy Link Location, and then open a new tab in your browser. Navigate to one of the shortened link unmasking services below and copy the shortened link into the website.
https://sitecheck.sucuri.net/
http://checkshorturl.com/
These websites will tell you exactly where a shortened link will take you and reveal other useful information about the site. Three tips to avoid malicious email links
The best policy to avoid malicious links contained in emails is to avoid clicking on anything in them. Instead, open a fresh tab in your web browser and manually type in the site you want to navigate to, or better yet, bookmark the safe site in your web browser and click on that instead. Always use caution when reviewing emails and you’ll never regret it. Three tips to avoid malicious email links

Three tips to avoid malicious email links

Three tips to avoid malicious email links Three tips to avoid malicious email links Three tips to avoid malicious email links Three tips to avoid malicious email links Three tips to avoid malicious email links

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Fraud & Security

How to keep your mobile device away from criminals

by Rod Spurgeon
written by Rod Spurgeon

It’s a beautiful morning and you decide to visit your favorite beverage shop to enjoy a tasty treat. With your go-juice in hand, you move to an empty table and sit down. You pull out your mobile phone to catch up on emails and read the latest news when you realize you forgot to get napkins. Leaving your coffee and phone on the table, you walk to the nearby counter, pluck two napkins from a holder, and return to your seat. As you approach your table, you move to set the napkins next to your coffee when you realize something has changed.

Your phone is missing.

You search the floor, your belongings, and your pockets, but without success. You ask the barista if she accidentally moved your phone from the table, but she hasn’t. You ask other patrons of the shop if they’ve seen your phone, but nobody saw a thing. It’s just gone. A sinking feeling forms in the pit of your stomach as you realize your phone has just been stolen.

This scenario happens more often every day. Don’t let it happen to you.

Whether you’re only stepping away from a table to grab another napkin, fork, or ketchup packet, someone might be watching, waiting for the opportunity to take what you have.

Avoid leaving your devices laying around on a table in a coffee shop, restaurant, library, or other public location. Never leave a mobile device where strangers can gain access to it and always maintain physical control of your device. When you leave a device where anyone else can access it, you risk losing the device to a criminal. Always keep your device under your control.

Even if you take every precaution to avoid leaving your mobile device in a vulnerable location, a thief might steal it from your pocket, purse, or satchel. To avoid losing the device forever, download a find my phone application from a primary vendor and use it. That way, if your mobile device is ever lost or stolen, you’ll have a much easier time locating it. Once you identify the location of your stolen device, give the information to law enforcement. Never confront a thief. A thief is likely to panic if caught, and like a cornered animal, that thief might hurt you to get away. Your mobile device isn’t worth your life.

Form the habit of locking your device when not in use, if you haven’t already. Set a passcode and use it. If someone steals your device, a passcode will reduce the chances of that person accessing your personal information.

When downloading a find my phone app, only download it and other apps from approved primary sources such as Apple iTunes or Google Play. Third party vendors may not screen apps located in their store as well as primary vendors, and it’s better to avoid them than take the risk of downloading an infected app.

Primary vendors do their best to weed out bad apps from their stable, but a few malicious apps might still find their way to the stores. Be sure to read reviews and see how many times others have downloaded an app before you consider downloading it. If the app’s reviews indicate the software might be compromised or the app has only been downloaded a few hundred times, avoid downloading it. Always use caution when downloading apps to avoid giving control of your personal information to a data thief.

Your phone is a treasure trove of your personal information to a criminal. Even if a thief doesn’t know how to access that trove because you have a strong passcode, the cost of a new device can be more than your budget can afford. Keep your device safe to avoid an unnecessary replacement cost.

 

 

 

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How to Stop Money Scammers
Fraud & Security

How to Stop Money Scammers

by Rod Spurgeon
written by Rod Spurgeon

Why scammers get away with their crimes – and what you can do to stop them!

It’s not always easy to avoid scams. Criminals are tricky, aggressive, and they’ll say whatever they have to that will convince someone to hand over their hard-earned money. If one of these scoundrels rips you off, what will you do about it? How to Stop Money Scammers

Everyone has the potential to become a victim of a scam, including you. I’ve seen countless stories come across my desk of victims who refused to believe that scammers ripped them off until they’ve lost everything. Some victims were too embarrassed to ask for help and allowed scammers to take every dime they had over time. Scammers count on the silence and compliance of their victims, using them as their personal piggy banks over and over again for as long as possible.

You can’t afford to lose everything you’ve worked so hard to earn throughout your entire life. How to Stop Money Scammers
If you become the victim of a scam, take the following actions immediately before it happens again:

  • Call the police to report the scam. Give them as much detail about the scammer as you can. The police will not only do what they can to catch the criminals, they can also give you the guidance you need to avoid becoming a victim again.
  • Learn from the mistake. Remember the details of the call and how the scammer convinced you to give up your money. If you receive a similar call in the future, hang up without saying another word. It’s not rude to hang up on someone who is trying to steal your money – it’s self-preservation. How to Stop the Money Scammers
  • Don’t answer phone calls from unknown numbers. The best way to avoid calls from scammers is to review the Caller ID and only answer the phone when you know the identity of the caller. How to Stop the Scammers
  • If you get a large number of calls from people trying to sell you something, even if you don’t answer unknown numbers, your phone number is probably on a scammer’s list of potential targets. A good way to stop these calls is to change your telephone number, even if you’ve owned it for years or decades. That phone number is now in the hands of those who will never stop calling and will always try to steal your money.
  • Don’t sign up for free prize drawings or contests. These are ploys to get your contact information for marketing purposes. The more marketing calls a person receives, the more likely that individual will become a victim of aggressive marketing tactics. How to Stop Money Scammers
  • If you feel overwhelmed by aggressive callers or large amounts of advertising mail and don’t know what to do, seek guidance from family members. Rely on help from loved ones to stop aggressive scammers from taking advantage of you.

Don’t be embarrassed if you find out that you’ve become the victim of a scam. It happens to people of every age, gender, and ethnicity. It’s what you do after it happens that will determine if it stops or continues until you’ve lost everything. Take the actions listed above to reduce your chances of becoming a victim again.

How to Stop the Money Scammers

How to Stop the Money ScammersHow to Stop the Scammers

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Fraud & Security

This Grandparent Scam Continues to Sweep Nation

by Rod Spurgeon
written by Rod Spurgeon

The next time you receive a call from a relative asking for money, be sure that person is who he or she claims to be.

In a recent scam, a senior received a call from a person pretending to be her grandson. The caller told the woman he had been arrested and needed bail money to be released from jail. To prove he was telling the truth, the caller handed the phone to another man who claimed to be a detective. The detective said the woman’s grandson was indeed in jail and would only be released if she mailed $10,000 in cash to the department for bail.

Fearing for her grandson’s well-being, the senior went to her bank, withdrew the money, and sent it via expedited courier service to the address provided by the detective.

A few days after she send the bail money, the senior called her grandson to ask if he was okay. Her confused grandson said he hadn’t been in jail and never asked for bail money. That’s when the senior realized she had been scammed.

If someone calls you and claims to be a relative who needs money, write down the information provided by the caller and tell him or her you will see what you can do. Once you’re off the phone with the caller, call the person back using the phone number you already have in your possession for the person. Ask if that individual just called you. If not, call the police and report the incident. Be sure to provide the police with the contact information the scammer gave you.

Don’t use the phone number provided by the caller to verify the caller’s identity. If the caller is a scammer, you’ll only be in contact with the scammer and not your relative. Keep a list of telephone phone numbers for relatives available just in case you need them. Call only the telephone numbers on this list if you need to reach that relative.

Scammers are devious and will say anything to convince you to send them your hard-earned money. President Ronald Reagan said multiple times, “trust, but verify.” If you ever receive a call or letter asking for cash, gift cards, or money orders from a relative in a tough situation, take time to verify that person’s identity. Those few extra minutes you spend verifying a person’s identity can help keep your money out of a criminal’s hands.

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Oversubscribed - How to avoid the cash drain of too many subscriptions
Money Tips

Oversubscribed – How to avoid the cash drain of too many subscriptions

by Rod Spurgeon
written by Rod Spurgeon

I have a number of subscriptions that I like to keep up. Netflix, Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, Chuze Fitness, and a few others prove very handy with my lifestyle. I use them all regularly, and some more often than I should. But I don’t maintain subscriptions to services I no longer use. Why waste the cash?

Your money is a precious resource, and you should use it for the things in life you need and want. Use it to further your education, your fitness, and your savings account. Use it to improve your lifestyle and your well-being. But don’t give it needlessly to businesses whose services you no longer use.

Businesses appreciate your subscriptions. They want you to be lifelong members, and will often urge you to continue using their services. That’s fine. It’s what a good business should do. It’s when you stop using those services, but keep paying the monthly fees that turns a good deal into a bad one for you.
It’s not about the efficiency or reliability of a service. It’s not about customer service or availability of the service. It’s about a subscription’s usefulness in your dynamic world. If you don’t use it, why pay for it?

You need to use your money efficiently to maximize its benefit to you. Dumping a subscription isn’t like getting a divorce. Divorces are hard. Stopping a service you no longer need isn’t quite so difficult, or at least it shouldn’t be.

It’s true some subscriptions are harder to cancel than others. For some, you can go online and press a “Stop my subscription” button – somewhere, even if it isn’t as easy to find as it should be. But many companies usually prefer direct interaction with a customer to cancel a service. This gives the business representative one last chance to keep you as a customer, even if you haven’t used the service in months – or years.

Do what you must to cancel an unneeded and unused service, but get it done. The sooner you can cut ties to a business you longer need, the quicker you can use that money for something far greater in value to you. Oversubscribed – How to avoid the cash drain of too many subscriptions

Oversubscribed – How to avoid the cash drain of too many subscriptions

Oversubscribed – How to avoid the cash drain of too many subscriptions Oversubscribed – How to avoid the cash drain of too many subscriptions Oversubscribed – How to avoid the cash drain of too many subscriptions Oversubscribed – How to avoid the cash drain of too many subscriptions Oversubscribed – How to avoid the cash drain of too many subscriptions Oversubscribed – How to avoid the cash drain of too many subscriptions

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Protecting Yourself from Credit Scams
Money Tips

Protecting Yourself from Credit Scams

by Rod Spurgeon
written by Rod Spurgeon

Smart chips are continuing to working their way into credit and debit cards around the nation. While they offer a stronger measure of protection against fraud, they can also be a target for scammers. Protecting Yourself from Credit Scams
Unlike magnetic strip cards, smart chip cards can be inserted into a slot on a card reader for payment processing. Data on the card’s chip can’t be read by card skimmers placed on or around a card reader, making it more difficult for criminals to acquire information from processing devices.

Not every financial company has issued smart chip cards to customers. As businesses replace their customers’ cards with chip-infused versions, criminals are taking advantage of the transition period.
During a smart chip credit card scam, a thief calls a target to tell him or her that the bank is in the process of issuing new smart chip cards. For the customer to receive one, that person must first confirm account information. If the customer hands over this data, a criminal will gain access to sensitive financial information and will use it to make fraudulent purchases.

A bank isn’t going to call you to confirm your card information. The bank already has this data and doesn’t need it from you. A scammer doesn’t have this information and needs to get it from you to commit fraud. Protecting Yourself from Credit Scams

A good way to avoid becoming a victim of credit card fraud from telephone scams is to avoid providing any personal information to unsolicited callers, including your name. If a person calls and requests access to your account information, tell the person that it’s your policy to never give that information over the phone unless you initiated the call. The person might become aggressive at that point and threaten to close your account if you refuse the request. Tell the individual that you’re going to hang up and call the company directly to verify the claim. Disconnect the call immediately afterward, look up the contact information for the company, and report the encounter with the caller.

Fraudsters are counting on you to hand over your credit card information without question. Always question every call you receive and never hand over personal information just because someone asks for it. Protecting Yourself from Credit Scams

Protecting Yourself from Credit Scams

Protecting Yourself from Credit Scams Protecting Yourself from Credit Scams Protecting Yourself from Credit Scams Protecting Yourself from Credit Scams Protecting Yourself from Credit Scams Protecting Yourself from Credit Scams Protecting Yourself from Credit Scams Protecting Yourself from Credit Scams Protecting Yourself from Credit Scams Protecting Yourself from Credit Scams

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Scammers stealing Social Security numbers from Medicare recipients
Fraud & Security

Scammers stealing Social Security numbers from Medicare recipients

by Rod Spurgeon
written by Rod Spurgeon

 
Medicare will soon roll out new Medicare Health Insurance cards to all seniors. The new cards are designed to help prevent identity theft by removing one specific piece of information – Social Security numbers. Identity thieves are aware of this change and are currently scrambling to obtain as many Social Security numbers and other personal information from seniors as possible before the release date. Scammers stealing Social Security numbers from Medicare recipients
Instead of Social Security numbers, the new cards will use unique Medicare numbers to identify cardholders. The new Medicare number is only useful for Medicare purposes and is useless to criminals looking to steal someone’s identity. Criminals are scrambling to call as many seniors as possible before the new cards are issued, and you may soon find one of these scammers on the phone with you.
Some scammers begin the call with a pleasant or neutral tone. They will say they’re from Medicare or an organization related to Medicare and may inform callers about the upcoming changes to Medicare cards. Callers will then ask seniors for personal information, including Social Security numbers, to receive new cards. The caller may also ask seniors to pay a fee related to the new Medicare cards. If the Medicare recipient refuses to provide personal information or pay the fee over the phone, the caller’s tone will take a dramatic turn for the worse.
When a Medicare recipient doesn’t provide the information or fee requested by the scammer, the scammer may become aggressive, rude, or even hostile. The caller may bully, intimidate and even threaten to terminate the Medicare recipient’s benefits unless the senior gives the caller exactly what he or she wants. Don’t fall for it.
Nobody is going to call you from Medicare to ask for any personal information related to your new card. Anybody who calls you asking for personal information to receive your new card is a scammer. When Medicare rolls out the new cards, you do notneed to do anything to receive it. Medicare will automatically send you a new card in the mail. Until then, stay alert for telephone calls from people masquerading as officials from Medicare, and hang up on anyone asking for your personal information or to pay a fee for your new card.
Keep this in mind – you are not obligated to endure unwelcome treatment or talk to anyone over the phone unless you want to. If someone is rude, hostile, or otherwise unpleasant toyou over the phone, hang up. If someone is pushing you into giving up your personal information over the phone, hang up. Your phone belongs to you, not the caller. If you’re ever uncomfortable with speaking to the caller, hang up the phone. Hanging up your phone is your best line of defense against an unwelcome caller.
For more information on the new Medicare Health Insurance card, go to:https://www.medicare.gov/newcard/

Scammers stealing Social Security numbers from Medicare recipients

Scammers stealing Social Security numbers from Medicare recipients Scammers stealing Social Security numbers from Medicare recipients Scammers stealing Social Security numbers from Medicare recipients Scammers stealing Social Security numbers from Medicare recipients Scammers stealing Social Security numbers from Medicare recipients Scammers stealing Social Security numbers from Medicare recipients Scammers stealing Social Security numbers from Medicare recipients Scammers stealing Social Security numbers from Medicare recipients
 
 

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