Fraud Prevention Center

In today’s digital world, it’s important to be on the lookout for fraudulent activity and to know how to safeguard yourself against it. At Members First, we monitor this kind of activity on a daily – and even hourly – basis.  Identity theft is one of the most prevalent crimes in America today. You’ll find resources and advice below to help protect you from this growing problem.

NOTICE: Financial texting, phone, and email scams are on the rise. Members First will never contact you to ask for your account numbers, card number, zip code, passwords, pin numbers, passcodes, or usernames. If anyone contacts you unexpectedly and requests this information please do not provide.

What Can You Do to Protect Yourself

Online

  • Only enter personal information when you’re on a secure website. Always look for a “lock” on the browser or “https” at the beginning of the website address to ensure the site is secure.
  • Create strong passwords for all of your online logins. A strong password is important for online transactions. Here are steps you can take to create a strong password.
    • Length: The longer, the better and at least 12 characters.
    • Complexity:  Use a combination of numbers, special characters, lowercase and capital letters to create passwords that are at least 12 characters long.
    • Variation: Change them frequently.
    • Variety: Don’t use the same password for everything.
    • Security: Don’t share your passwords and keep them in a safe place.

Email, Text and Phone

  • Do not open emails or text messages if you don’t recognize the sender’s name. When in doubt, delete!
  • Never respond to emails or text messages with personal banking or credit card information.
  • Never provide debit or credit card numbers or PIN in response to unsolicited email.
  • Never use email to send your confidential information, since internet email is not secure.
  • Be cautious about giving confidential information over the phone, or through text message, to callers you don’t know.

Anti-virus Software

  • Update anti-virus software and security patches to your system software regularly.
  • Perform software updates to your mobile devices, too, to avoid malware specifically targeting smartphones, tablets and other similar electronics.

Credit Report and Financial Statements

  • Review your credit report once a year.
  • Check your monthly statements to verify all transactions and notify your financial institution of any suspicious transactions.
  • Tear up or shred any pre-approved credit offers that you do not want.
  • Report lost or stolen checks and credit cards immediately. Close accounts that have been tampered with. As a precaution, make photocopies of both sides of the contents of your wallet and keep the copies in a safe place. If anything should happen, you will have copies of your cards, complete with account numbers and contact information.
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