With the increase in e-payments and e-wallet transactions, the chances of frauds and scams have also increased. Let us take you through a few simple tips that can protect you from any untoward incident of Online Monetary Frauds:
1. Set a Strong and Long Password for your Internet Banking Accounts
The password that you use to login to your internet banking accounts is the most essential thing that needs to be handled with extreme care and caution. It should be something that can neither be guessed easily nor is typical eg. Some people keep their password as their spouse’s name; Date of birth; “PASSWORD” etc. and also never share your password with anyone. You must have a password that has alphabets, special characters along with numbers. Use the password strength calculator if you feel the need.
Also keep a password that is lengthy then its even more difficult to hack it and also that way if someone is tracking your hand movements to guess your password, this makes it even more difficult for them to remember and retrieve.
2. Subscribe to Mobile and Email alerts for All Transactions - Big or Small
Enable the SMS and email alerts for all transactions of the biggest or the smallest amount, done via your debit or credit cards. It is important to check and verify any transaction that looks suspicious to you, often it is seen that fraudulent activity begins with transactions of small amounts.
3. Buy Insurance E-wallets
Companies like OneAssist and CPPIndia not just insure your credit and debit cards but also cover you from theft and other frauds that often occur in day to day transactions. A perquisite of One Assist Complimentary benefits for your wallet insurance is also available for ICICI customers which they can avail by upgrading their debit card to “RubyX”.
4. Never Save Exact Passwords
Our phone is something that our friends, colleagues at work fidget with most of the time, thus it’s advisable that you shouldn’t save your internet banking passwords or as a matter of fact any passwords as it is exactly in your phone or email. You can devise a secret fill in the blanks sort of a format that only you understand and can recall the entire password only by looking at the secret formula. However, make sure that you do not devise a format so complicated that you lose track of your password altogether. Also, when you use internet banking accounts, you have various things you need to keep a track of, like transaction ID, user login ID, main password, etc. so make sure you keep them separate and do not mix them up.
5. Do Not Share Your ATM Pin/CVV/Expiry Date over the Phone or Email
We all know this, yet we make this mistake over and over again. Banks time and again issue statements regarding the same and also clearly and specifically state that the bank’s customer care will never call you and ask for these confidential details. The things required for verification are card number, date of birth, etc. However, fraudsters still call people asking for these confidential details and due to technological illiteracy one in 5 people still make the mistake of revealing this confidential info.
6. Always Enter Your Pin Yourself
Even though it is more convenient to just share the CVV of your card or even your card PIN with the waiter while you’re eating or getting fuel however it’s not at all safe. You never know what desperate measures people may adopt to gain money. It’s only the Indian websites that ask for the OTP verification, the international websites are not fond of this practice.
7. Save Customer Care Numbers of your Bank(s)
This is extremely necessary so that as soon as you detect a fraud or find your card missing you can contact the customer care and freeze your account before any money is withdrawn or transaction done. Delay in such cases can lead to serious financial losses.
8. Don’t Let Others see Your ATM Pin
We all know this yet fail to do it. Whenever you are withdrawing money from the ATM or even entering your PIN while making a card payment, block other’s view, you never know who may look at it and may use it later.
9. Avoid Late Night ATM transactions
Its better to avoid withdrawal of cash via ATMs at lonely places or at night after 10-11 pm because there have been many incidents of people entering the ATM booth and looting the person making the withdrawal on gunpoint or even looting him as soon as he steps outside the ATM Booth.
10. Opt for the Two Factor Authentication
The two factor authentication provides double security. In addition to your transaction password you will have to also enter an OTP (One Time Password) which you receive via SMS on the registered mobile number that the bank has in its records.
11. Never Click on Links in email to Visit your Bank’s Website
If you’ve received an email from your bank specifically one pertaining to some security breach, prompting you to visit the site of the bank via that email, opening the bank website by clicking on the link provided in that email isn’t a good idea. There are chances that the link may redirect you to a similar looking website and once you enter your password and credentials, you’ll be in trouble. It’s advisable that you visit your bank’s website by clicking on a pre-stored web address or bookmarked by you or type it yourself and always make sure it starts with https:// and that it is a secure server.
12. Do not Save Passwords in Browser
Whenever you enter a user name and password on a website, the browser automatically asks you whether you want to save the password so as to auto-fill the next time you’re logging into that website. Do not opt for the “save this password” option at least not for your internet banking accounts.
13. Make use of the Virtual Keyboard
Technology has advanced to such an extent that now there are softwares namely “spy ware’ that can find out your password only by detecting the keys you are hitting on your keypad. Thus it’s a good idea to use a virtual keyboard, which is most often available on banking sites, etc.
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