Springhill Group Home: Protect Yourself Against Frauds

1. Springhill Group Home: Protect Yourself Against Frauds and Scams, Identity Theft and Reduce Spam Email SPRINGHILL CARE GROUP

2. Scam, Frauds and identity theft are just some of the threats encountering by the internet users. For the new users this kind of occurrence during their search or conversation on the internet can give them quite idea that these are likely important and can simply hook them up in just a single click. So, if you are one of them and or think that you have been a witness of these blue moons or just simply to be aware about and safeguard yourself, below are the lists of activities or actions that you can take in order to put a fence on your side.

3. 1.Do not use or carry a checkbook When you are paying stuff, it suggests being it in cash or credit card. It’s safer to pay your bills through your bank or credit unification online bill paying service which is usually free.

4. 2.Buy and use a paper cutter Identity thieves actually go through homeowner’s trash to acquire personal information. For you to put off these thieves objectives, feel Secure to cut any documents that have your social security number or other financial information, such as the bank account number of yours, credit card numbers and the like that can possibly give these people your personal identity. If you don’t have paper cutter make use of an alternative through burning these documents completely.

5. 3.Freeze your credit This is to hands off scammers from opening unauthorized accounts in your name or identity. Even if your state is one of the few that does not allow freeze, you can still freeze your files at some of the leading major credit bureaus out there.

6. 4.Make a Do-not-Call List 5.Make a statement to block credit card offers 6.Always put your Social Security card in a safe place When you renew your driver’s license, make sure the DMV does not use your Social Security number as your driver’s license number.

7. 7.Make use of a different email addresses  8.     Use a separate email address This is when you post messages to any public forum, such as newsgroups and mailing lists. Make an email account for such private conversation purposes and for another for your public identity to put a stop to this growing identity theft. Never use your personal email address in public because you might receive a number of different spams. You can periodically check this email account to see what spam is and what isn’t. A bonus is that Yahoo’s spam blocker is better than those from most ISP’s! And your main personal email address won’t be as clogged with spam. Some ISP’s like AOL and BellSouth.net give you multiple email accounts free with your paid service.

8. 9.    Do not give any financial information Your money in the bank is the major goal of scammers. So when you are on the situation of asking somebody your financial account which reason is pleasing to the ear such as they are just to check your account and credit card number, specifically you social security number on the phone or online, unless you initiate the call and you know the organization you’re dealing with. 10.Do not put an interest into such “win a vacation” Do not fill out the “win a vacation” and other promotions you see in stores and shopping malls. Upon writing or entertaining it can give you junk mailing list and guarantee calls from persistent, high-pressure salesmen.

9. 11.Do not make an advance copy of your driver’s license, telephone, or social security numbers on your checks. 12.Report lost or stolen checks right away. The bank can block payment on the check numbers that are missing. Also, review new checks you receive, to make sure none has been stolen in transit. 13.   Store new and cancelled checks, credit card statements, medical bills, anything with confidential information, in a safe place and cut or burn them when you are done with them.

10. 14.   Secure your Personal Identification Numbers of Pin Numbers for your ATM and credit cards, and do not write on                anything or keep your pins with your cards. You should also secure your ATM card and credit card receipts, for thieves might                    use it to have access on your accounts. 15.Use different cases in selecting Personal Identification Numbers for your ATM and credit cards, and passwords that                    allow you to access other accounts. Do not use birth dates, a part your Social Security number or driver’s license number,                            address, nor children’s or spouse names.

11. 16.   Make use of a good anti-virus software anti-adware software and a hardware firewall on your computer, and keep them up to            date. You need all three. Almost all modern Routers (Dlink, LinkSys, NetGear, Buffalo, Airlink, etc.) have a hardware firewall built              in. See the left side of this page for the current recommendation for ant-virus / anti-malware programs. 17.   Don’t make an outgoing mail in your mailbox            Drop it into a secure, official Postal Service collection box. Thieves may use your mail to steal your identity

12. 18.    Report to the company immediately, if regular bills fail to reach you. Someone might give a false record of you and your family to divert your information to his or her address. 19.    If your bills include suspicious charges, do not ignore it. Instead, investigate immediately to head off any possible fraud before it occurs. 20.Check your credit report every day. Federal laws enable you to acquire one form credit report from each of the 3 major credit reporting agencies per year.

13. 21.Prefer to use disposable addresses There are services online; some are free like SneakMail that provides you disposable addresses that can be deleted if they begin to receive spam messages. The disposable email addresses forwards email to a real email address of yours, but the sender cannot see this. If you create a unique address for each email newsletter or forum you subscribe to you can get rid of the address is it gets too much spam and just start using another email address. 22.   Stop purchasing a product or render any services to any company that sends you spam. Do not even visit their sites or ask for more information. Always bare in mind that, since they send out millions of spam emails, they only need a tiny fraction of responses to be profitable.   And if that doesn’t convince you, consider this: the vast majority of spam “offers” are in fact scams.

14. 23.Filter your email program Outlook does this quite easily. When you open an email and realize that it is spam, just click on Actions then Create Rule, then select an appropriate action, such as “from” then click “Move e-mail to folder” and select the “Deleted Items” folder. That’s it!  You’ll never receive email from that particular address or subject again. Do not post your address in HTML format Otherwise you will be spammed, since address-harvesting spiders (programs) extract your email address from the website and add it to the spammer’s lists.  Instead use feedback forms through PHP, ASP, or JSP that hide the email address, OR post the email address as a GIF (image file). 2.  Do not get so exited If someone emailed you or sends you message or acknowledgement that you win from lottery or any raffles from a “randomly selected from a database of email addresses.”Lastly, Multi-level marketing is a scam.