Survey question

[jinasphinx]

What do you do to keep your financial information safe, and why?

Examples: never pay with physical checks because bank account number is in plaintext, not use online banking because of fear of hacking, shred all financial statements because of dumpster-divers, etc.

Comments

oooh, a short answer test! I love those! :-)

[walkitout]

(1) I never, ever, ever give my credit card number to anyone who calls _me_. If they have it on file, I may authorize a charge to it, but only if I don't have to give them the number. I'm happy to confirm last four

Re: oooh, a short answer test! I love those! :-)

[jinasphinx]

Thank you for the answers!

If you don't mind a followup question: from your mention of online bill-pay, I'm guessing you use online banking? How did you decide it was safe to use?

Re: oooh, a short answer test! I love those! :-)

[walkitout]

I am never _entirely_ certain what some of these words mean. When I say I pay bills online, what I mean is I sign up with the people I owe money to (like, Verizon, or the water company or a credit card company, or the State of Massachusetts Department of Revenue) and use their website. So it pulls money from either a credit card account or a checking account, depending on which I use in each particular case. I realize there are ways to make it work the other direction (you use a bank's website or whatever to send money out to various bills you owe), but I could never figure out how the hell to make that work

Re: oooh, a short answer test! I love those! :-)

[walkitout]

For example, here is USA Today coverage of the kind of bill pay that I never could figure out

[maniakes]

1. I don't click links in emails to get to financial institution websites or sites where I'll be entering payment information, for fear of phishing. Instead I type the URL by hand if I already know it or I google the company's name to find their webpage.

2. I take care when disposing of documents with financial info on them (statements, credit card offers, expired cards, etc). I used to shred them until my shredder broke. Now I either burn them or tear them up and toss them in the bucket with the used kitty litter.

3. I check my account activity periodically for charges I don't recognize, and I check my credit reports every year or two.