On this page I will layout how to be prepared in case you are suspicious of accounts being accessed. I’ll help you know how to deal with this step by step quickly and without having to think through it. The key is setting up a checklist that you can use to go through accounts and check to see if anything has changed.
That being said, you need to be consciously aware of what is going on with your finances on a regular basis. I generally recommend that people log into their financial accounts at least once every few days. I log into my bank account every morning. The other thing to stay aware of is when you have auto pay items coming out of your accounts. Most people have house payments, utilities, car payments and such that come directly out of your checking account each month. On the type of transactions you will just about always get a text alerting you to the fact that it just happened. Those are normal and are the kind of texts you should know that you will be receiving each month. Don’t let those alarm you. Those are the good texts.
Nearly all financial accounts that I know of have settings that you can go into and set up alerts for when certain types of transactions occur. For instance, you can log into your bank account online and set up an alert for when your account goes below a certain balance or a transaction over a certain amount occurs. There are all kinds of alerts that you can set up. One of the main ones I like to use is an alert for any credit card transaction over $90. The reason for that number is that scammers love to buy $100 gift cards. The reason they do that is that it’s not such a big charge that it will alarm you. They can sneak those by easily if you aren’t watching your credit card statements carefully. When setting up alerts I recommend sending them to your cell phone if your cell phone is capable of text messaging. DO NOT set up alerts to go to a land line. Those will not go through if they are texts and I have seen where people setup blocking on their landlines that stop important information from going through.
When a potential scammer has been allowed on your computer or if you wind up in a situation where funds have been stolen two questions tend to weigh on you. First of all, how many accounts have been compromised? Second of all, has any of my information in those accounts been changed so that a scammer can log into them? This type of situation will typically leave most people feeling a bit overwhelmed. It can be hard to think in those types of situations. The best course of action is to be prepared ahead of time so that you can methodically go through accounts and check them.
What I recommend doing is getting a small USB drive and creating a Word document on that drive that will have all of the information listed in order of importance so that you can immediately start checking accounts. DO NOT keep this document on your computer! Put it on a USB drive and also print out a copy on paper so that you can check items off as you go. I always tell people to store this in an out of the way location so that no one can walk off with it. For instance, DO NOT store it on or in your desk. If a person were to break into your home most are going to look at what is on your desk or in it. That’s an easy way for someone to walk off with it. Having this document with all of your information on it takes away having to think through things. It relieves a lot of stress and gets you started checking things quickly.
Below is the information that you want to record on your document for those accounts.
1. Username
2. Password
3. Email address or addresses
4. Phone numbers for your phones – preferable cell phone numbers
5. Make sure that you have a phone number for the financial institution that you can call them on. Never use a phone number in an email that you receive. There are way too many fake emails that scammers use to get you to call them.
Once you start working through your list of accounts just check the balances and charges first time through. Once you’ve done a quick check on those and verify that everything is okay you can go back to them. When you go back through the second time then you want to check and make sure that no phone numbers, emails or addresses for those accounts have been changed. You also want to change passwords.
I always start the document with financial accounts at the top. Those are most vulnerable. Those can be emptied out and if you allow someone to do that in many cases you will not get your money back. Your first one will be your checking account and then your savings account. In many banks they will also have investment accounts that you can see when you log in. The dashboard with accounts is the first thing you see. If something looks strange call them immediately using a phone number that you have already recorded on your document. You might even head immediately to the bank and sit down with them face to face. The most important thing is that you take care of securing these vulnerable accounts first of all.
The next accounts you will deal with will be the credit card accounts. These are important but if there are unauthorized charges the credit card companies will refund the charges. Make sure that you have all of these listed on your documents including the credit card numbers. Just skim through your charges on these cards and look for odd purchases or things like gift cards.
Next step will be to check all of your retail accounts like Amazon, Best Buy, Home Depot, Lowes, etc. One of the main things to look for on these is the purchase of gift cards. This is one of the main reasons that I had said previously that you should set up alerts on your credit cards for purchases over $90. Scammers like $100 gift cards. That is very common. They use these gift cards to go in and purchase items so they can then resell these items. Using gift cards helps them avoid the tracking of their purchases.
Next item will be utilities. Most of the time this is not going to be an issue because they typically can’t get anything out of them but I would still change the passwords.
Next up will be things like newsletters and various subscriptions like Netflix, Hulu and such. Changes the passwords on these.
If you get all of this recorded on a Word document then it just makes it so easy to grab the list and go down the line in a logical order and start checking. Again, I would have it on a USB drive and printed and stored in a location a little harder to find. Make sure that two or three people in your household know where it is. DO NOT store it on your computer.