Protecting Your Company And Clients From Data And Identity Theft

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identity theft

There are a lot of ways that individuals can work to protect their credit and name from identity theft and from security breach. Limiting the amount of shopping done online and keeping a regular eye on accounts for fraudulent charges is part of it.

Even the IRS is working towards helping people protect their name and assets, including issues with refund fraud. Refund fraud is even more prevalent these days and it’s important for people to know that they can feel safe in the world.

Check Fraud And Stolen Credit Card Information

Once upon a time it was only checks and credit cards you had to worry about. As soon as there were more safety triggers put inline to protect your checks and credit cards there was suddenly online shopping and debit cards.

Most banks pay close attention to withdrawals and credit/debit card use, and when something suspicious happens they’ll put a hold on the account. But what are stores doing to protect their shoppers at that level?

Protecting Online Shoppers

One of the easiest ways so far to keep customers safe is with online shopping. Setting up secure servers, or using a payment service such as Paypal, seems to be a great way to protect buyers from fraud.

In stores it looks like more security is being worked out with point of sale (pos) systems so that security breaches that have been happening more lately can be avoided. Stores are putting more firewalls in place, adding more online security, and trying to do what they can to raise customer trust again.

The Safety Of Credit Cards

Many credit card companies are now also putting extra protection on cards with a new chip that requires a little more work in the checkout lane. That extra swipe may save you from losing money, so it’s worth an extra few seconds to check out!

Hopefully more businesses will also start actually checking the signatures on the backs of cards and comparing them to the person’s driver’s license. This is something not many stores adhere to and should have more strict penalties for not doing it.

Other things that companies can do to help protect their customers is to cut back on how many people and who has access to customer information, both online and in print.Shred documents that have been printed with customer information of any kind.

It’s also important for companies to keep customer info online encrypted and to keep thumb drives and paperwork locked away and keep track of who has access to the keys.

Customers do enough work on their own trying to protect their names and their money, and knowing that a business is doing just as much or more to help keep them safe will make them more likely to keep coming back to that company and to suggest that company to others.