What you can do to help protect yourself

In addition to our fraud prevention measures there are some things you can do to help protect yourself as well. We’ve listed some of these below to help you:

  • Keep your passwords safe
  • Don’t share them with anyone and don’t write them down
  • Use passwords which can’t be easily guessed, such as your date of birth or your children’s names
  • Create passwords which include both letters and numbers in a mix of upper and lower case
  • Use a different password for each online account you have
  • Always log out of any websites which hold information about you, including payment details
  • It’s important that you log out of any online accounts you have when you finish the session. This is especially important if you are using someone else’s computer, or a public one
  • Keep your personal information private
  • Keep your privacy settings up to date on social network sites such as Facebook to make sure no one unscrupulous can see your personal information – this is a great source of information for fraudsters!
  • Do not give out any personal details to anyone, even if the request appears to be from a legitimate source, such as your bank or insurer
  • Keep your bank and credit cards safe
  • It’s important to sign your bank and credit cards as soon as you receive them and keep them in a safe place
  • When using your card, make sure those around you can’t see you input your PIN into the card machine
  • Report a lost or stolen card immediately

Keep your kit safe

The points below are relevant to all devices you use to access the internet, including computers, laptops, mobiles and tablets

  • Install anti-virus software and keep it up to date. If your device should get a virus it can steal your personal information, or even take over your computer and use it to attack others.
  • Set your anti-virus software to scan files as and when you access them and to also download any available updates when you go online
  • Keep your software up to date
  • Register for your software support package

Uninstall any unwanted software

Sometimes companies may need to access your computer remotely (for example, IT companies for repair purposes). Unfortunately, fraudsters can also use this to gain access to your devices. It is always best to remove any software which you don’t need.

Take care when buying items online

It’s always best to only buy goods online from reputable companies. However, there are still a number of things to look out for to help spot a fraudulent website:

  • Does the site look genuine? Easy things to spot are; spelling mistakes, strange payment methods, pages which look odd. It’s also worth checking out any reviews
  • Always check the small print, remember if a deal looks too good to be true…it probably is!

More information
If you would like more information about how to help protect yourself against financial and cyber crime we have included links to some external websites for you to visit: