12 Tips for Avoiding Online Identity Fraud, Theft and Scams

Posted by David | Filed under The Web

You have to be careful when your giving out personal details online, as a step in the wrong direction could cause you to have your identity and bank details stolen. Here are 12 tips for avoiding online identity fraud, theft and online scams.

  • If you receive an email from a bank or your bank asking you to login or change your password, don’t do it! It’s probably a fake web address, if you are unsure, manually go to your banks website and you will see that its probably not the case.
  • When shopping online only use a reputable online retailer that you can trust, and has a good returns policy.
  • Make sure that when you shop there is the Golden Padlock in the corner of your browser to show that your bank details will remain encrypted.
  • Don’t send your bank details to anyone via email, online messengers or other websites.
  • Make sure you spell websites correctly.
  • Ignore emails from PayPal or Ebay asking for password or other personal details.
  • Don’t give out your details unless you really have to, fill in as few fields in forms as possible.
  • Use a credit card if you can instead of a debit card, they offer much more protection.
  • Have a separate credit card for ordering goods online and check it regularly. Consider also having a separate email address for ordering online.
  • If something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is, don’t fall for scams that claim to be offering goods at stupidly low prices.
  • Make sure you know what your downloading! If you didn’t ask to download something click cancel.
  • Only open attachments in emails if you know who they are from or what they are.

You may consider changing your DNS to OpenDNS if you are having problems with scam sites, they automatically block known scam sites preventing you from accidentally giving away any of your personal details.

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