For many, the year-end holidays are a festive time of celebrating life with colleagues, friends and family. Part of that celebration may involve holiday purchases of physical gifts or experiences such as recreational trips or going out for meals at restaurants. The holidays are also when many stores have sales, and shoppers open their wallets and pocketbooks to take advantage of saving money by spending more of it. While the holidays can be a time for fun, they can also be a profitable season for crooks to ramp up their illicit actions, from breaking into cars, stealing packages from doorsteps or hijacking credit cards and personal account information.
With lots of holiday events happening, online security may not be something to think about, but it’s an essential part of daily life for many people that’s worth keeping in mind throughout the year. What can you do to enhance your security while online shopping during the busy holiday season of gift buying and giving? Here are a handful of suggestions that don’t require intensive effort or a lot of dedicated time:
Shop at well-known, trusted websites and be very cautious of unfamiliar boutique online stores and “too good to be true” unrealistic deals on merchandise or services
- Check to make sure an unknown retailer’s website represents a real, legit company—and don’t be bamboozled by deals that really are much too good to be true. Some online crooks may try to trick you by creating malicious websites for specialized products that appear to be legitimate and may offer what appear to be incredible bargains. Ask yourself why one boutique store is able to offer a better deal than a large retailer that should be able to negotiate better volume discount prices from manufacturers or wholesalers. A “too good to be true” deal may not be a legitimate deal; it may represent fake, knockoff products or non-existent merchandise you will never receive. If you’ve never heard of a retailer before, check carefully before handing over any personal and financial information.
- One source for checking if a company is legitimate is the Better Business Bureau®. The BBB®’s mission is to be the leader in advancing marketplace trust, and it helps consumers find businesses and charities that they can trust. There are also several well-known national review sites that collect public opinions on companies that also try to screen out fake reviews planted by a company or agents working for it. Check out the company with the Better Business Bureau®’s online BBB Scam TrackerSM tool to discover any suspicious activity about it.
- Generally, it’s a good idea to begin looking for an item first at a well-known, trusted retailer’s website before trying specialized sellers to comparison shop. Be careful to avoid typing in an incorrect name or address that might send you to an imitation site run by scammers.
Be thoughtful how you are buying something online; consider using credit cards instead of debit cards
- Whenever possible, use a credit card and not a debit card online, since a credit card creates a future charge to be paid later, but a debit card removes cash quickly. There are U.S. laws that limit personal financial liability for fraudulent credit card charges, which must be paid at some future time. Debit cards may not have the same amount of protection, and with a debit card, money—instead of having a pending credit card charge—is withdrawn directly from your account, so a crook with your debit card credentials could be able to empty out a checking, savings or other account tied to the debit card.
- Make sure your personal information is encrypted at websites and on mobile phones; look for secure website addresses. Reputable online merchants use encryption to transmit information from your browser to their computer servers hosting the website and enabling financial transactions. Look in your browser’s top address bar to make sure the website address begins with “https://” instead of “http://.” The “s" in https:// means the website is encrypted with a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) that should protect your private information from being exposed to hackers. The site may also display visual confirmation of SSL with a very small icon of a locked padlock showing up on the left side of the website address. Be extremely cautious of entering payment information for any site that doesn’t indicate that your personal details, including those from your financial account, are encrypted.
- You’re likely to make more purchases over the holiday season than any other months during the year, so be sure to frequently check your credit card and bank statements for any fraudulent charges, either weekly or monthly. You can also set up credit or debit cards to send an email or text to yourself immediately after the card is used. If you find any potential or obviously fraudulent charges, then notify your card issuer, credit union, bank or financial institution right away.
Did you know that Delta Community offers a monitoring service that may enhance security for your accounts, PrivacyGuard?
Consider an identity theft monitoring insurance policy. If cybersecurity is a serious concern, then it may be helpful to look at investing in an identity monitoring plan to help keep your personal and credit information safer. Members Insurance Advisors, LLC., Delta Community’s wholly owned subsidiary, now offers members identity protection plans from PrivacyGuard.1 All PrivacyGuard plans offer comprehensive tools such as credit monitoring, dark and public web monitoring of your personal information, activity alerts and access to fraud resolution experts
Do not hesitate to contact Delta Community if you are ever concerned about your accounts; we are here to help our members
- If you think your Delta Community accounts have been compromised, immediately contact our Member Care Center via our toll-free number at 800-544-3328 with whatever details you have, including dates, amounts of money, email messages, email addresses, text messages, phone numbers and names.
- Please remember that Delta Community will never call, text or email you to ask for your checking, savings, investment, ATM, debit or credit card account number or password, your telephone access (IVR) PIN, one-time passcode or other confidential personal information.
Do you want to know more about personal online safety throughout the rest of the year?
More information on protecting yourself and your accounts—along with practical financial advice—is available from free Delta Community Financial Education Center webinars on many different money-related topics. You can visit the Financial Education Center's Events & Seminars page to register for its no-cost, on-demand webinars.
Delta Community’s blog and its security and privacy center regularly have recommendations for managing money during the holidays and enhancing online personal security:
1The benefits in PrivacyGuard are provided by Trilegiant Corporation.
