“Set it and Forget It”….that’s what we’re urging members to do to better protect themselves from potential fraud. One of the best ways to protect yourselves from fraud is to be aware of your account activity.
Let me elaborate. We have had some recent member fraud cases where the crux of the fraud was the members had not checked in on their accounts for such a long time that they were unaware of suspicious activity that had occurred on their accounts. Sadly, in this day of fearless criminals, you must check on your accounts periodically, ideally every couple of days, but at least weekly, to ensure all is well.
We know that some members simply can’t do this or don’t want to do this. For those members, there’s a very effective alternative that will produce the same effect — account alerts.
The credit union’s revamped systems allow you to be alerted via phone call, text or email when transactions occur on your account. You choose what you want to be alerted of. You can choose to be alerted for all transactions, debit card purchase, cleared checks, loan payments, etc. One way to avoid an abundance of alerts is you can set dollar amount limits. Maybe you only want to get alerts for transactions $50 or higher or $100 or higher. All of this can be done via online banking by clicking the Tools menu and then Alerts.
This may sound simple, but in the recent fraud cases I noted if the members had known about the account activity they could have taken action to limit the fraud.
“Set it and Forget it” is our latest tip for members given the fraud attempts we have seen, but I will continue to reiterate that while many members fear an online hack of their data, or some sort of technology-driven fraud, in almost all cases what we see are criminals using low-tech ways to commit fraud such as stealing bills, statements, checks, etc. to obtain personal information they use to produce false payments or create a false member profile. The more you can keep your data out of the public stream of information the better. In any case, being alerted via text, a phone call or an email will allow you to stay on top of your account activity.
I also want members to know that we recently implemented a two-factor on-demand text verification system. We will use this if we are concerned about fraud and need to further verify the member by sending a text code alert that the member reads back to us. Nothing in this era of fraud is an absolute defense, but our incremental changes over the last few years have maintained your credit union as one of the safest financial institutions in the country. My biggest concern remains when members unknowingly have their personal data compromised that is leveraged to commit fraud.
Finally, I have to share the news of TD Bank as it is such an incredible story in the world of banking and a great example of why you have to have confidence in where you bank. TD Bank was recently levied the largest Bank Secrecy Act fine in American history at $3 billion. Some of the bank’s employees were bribed into allowing criminal groups to launder hundreds of millions of dollars at their branches in New Jersey and New York. This activity went unchecked for a long period of time. I can’t stress enough how focused the government is on cash transactions. We are required to report all cash transactions of a certain dollar amount or a certain pattern. The fact that a bank of this size could stop doing that regulatory-required reporting on such a widespread level shows the vulnerabilities in our financial system. At your credit union, there are rigid policies and procedures that ensure this type of behavior can not occur. Regardless of how stringent our current policies and procedures are, criminals come up with new tactics, so we work hard to stay informed from our federal government regulator, colleagues, and industry partners on how to best protect our members. You can also help us. I urge you to help us help you by implementing “Set it and Forget it” account alerts. Thank you for your membership.
Paul Gentile
President/CEO
pgentile@merckefcu.com
