Every day we turn on the news or gather around the water cooler, we hear about some new way people are being scammed. Sometimes it’s stolen credit, sometimes it’s a business running away with your hard-earned money. While it’s virtually impossible to guarantee that it won’t happen to you, here are a few steps we can take to decrease your chances.
- Buy an inexpensive shredder and use it to destroy any documentation that includes your name, address, or other personal information. This would include credit card and bank statements, cancelled checks, junk mail and credit card offers, and medical bills. Throwing out (or recycling) this “paperwork” makes your information available to anyone willing to sort through the trash.
- Do not give out your social security number or any personal information to anyone you don’t know. This includes scary or official-looking letters or emails from your bank or credit card company that require you to update security information. If you receive such a notice, contact your bank (not by the phone number posted in the letter) to verify that it came from them.
- Never sign a blank contract and allow a salesperson to fill in the rest. Understand everything on the contract before signing, and get oral promises in writing.
- If you are scammed, don’t let your embarrassment stop you from filing a complaint with the proper authorities (Attorney General, Better Business Bureau, or police). Even the savviest consumers sometimes get stung. The only way to attempt to recover what was lost and prevent others from being scammed is to go on the record.
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