Whether it is a Debit card or credit card, fraud is dangerous for the health of your finance.

You possibly heard that the fraud risks are not that bad since you can replace the card or get a new account. But this can be a hassle. It’s good to prevent fraud in the first place.

There are a lot of measures one can take to remain safe when you are using credit cards. Following are few tips for credit card security for members.

Practice credit card protection from day one
Set up alerts if specific activity happens, like withdrawals or your balance gets lower. You can select Set Account Alerts under the services tab in online banking. You can set up card certain alerts that will notify you instantly when your card is utilized for the criteria you choose. Select Set Card Alerts under the Debit and Credit Cards tab in Elevations online banking.

Sign the back of your new card immediately
It will protect you if the card gets stolen or falls into the hands of someone else. Turn on suspicious activity alerts, and spend more time working on your password and PIN for the account When selecting passwords for your credit card accounts, remember to make a strong one that is perfect for every account do not use a similar password for your bank account and retail sites and take benefit of multifactor authentication when it is provided. If the account requires a PIN, don’t select a number that you utilize for other purposes or that’s personal to you, like your birthday or digits from your Social Security number.

Keep your account number private
Do not allow any person to see your card when you are out in public. Be selective when you give the account number over your phone; only provide these details when you trust them. Be suspicious of messages you receive over email, phone, text, social media, that ask you to provide personal info or click a suspicious link. Consider making payments online to remove sensitive details or information from the postal system. It is a better idea to shred documents with sensitive personal information before you will trash them.

Be careful with your receipts
If there’s more space on your receipt, draw a line through it so no one can write in any numbers. It is a better idea to check the receipts against your account to spot potentially fraudulent transactions fast. Ultimately, do not throw out any duplicates or old receipts. Shred the ones you do not require and safely file the rest.

Secure your devices and networks
If you permit the browser to store your credit card number, you can be vulnerable. To prevent this, consider turning off the Autofill function in every browser that you utilize. Additionally, think about using a digital wallet, a payment system housed on your smartphone that makes it possible to conduct electronic transactions using your credit cards. Because digital wallets use authentication, encryption, tokenization, they have the potential to be safer than carrying a credit card. If you use a digital wallet, make your smartphone tough to unlock by needing a passcode and fingerprint, where possible, and download an application to find your phone in case you lose it.

Protect yourself online
You must follow basic online safety, and you should consider taking these measures as well:

1. Know your merchant.
When shopping online, look for websites with “HTTPS” in their web addresses (the “s” stands for “secured”) and the green lock icon; ensure the URL involves the correct name of the company, instead of a close-but-not-correct version; and, on a secured website, share your info if you know how it’ll be used.

2. Type for every transaction.
Never let your credit card number be stored on an online shopping website.

3. Add a layer.
Consider using an online payment system or mobile payment services such as PayPal, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, or Android Pay to keep the credit card number out of the hands of merchants, so that if a merchant is hacked, it cannot leak your account number.

4. Watch out for public Wi-Fi.
Do not shop or conduct financial transactions, involving checking your accounts, using public Wi-Fi. Because it is a public network, your info can be viewed by anybody.

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