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5) If you ever receive an email asking for sensitive information and claiming to be from a company that you have an account with, NEVER supply requested information and never click any links or hit reply to send such personal information back to “company”.
Many legit companies will not ask for sensitive information via email.
If you get such an email you are better off to make a copy of letter you received then close that browser window and then open a NEW window and access company directly from their website address.
You should then submit email you made a copy of to company so that their anti- fraud personnel can take necessary steps to send out warnings of possible fraudulent activity to be aware of to its members.
6) Be cautious about downloading and installing unnecessary programs onto your computer. If there are programs that you indeed must download ALWAYS scan files for viruses and make sure that your anti-virus program is up to date.
There’s a wide variety of viruses that are distributed to unprotected computer systems and some of which are known as “Key Stroke Loggers” that record your sensitive log in names and passwords and then are made known to trouble maker.
7) If possible try to utilize 2 different computers when using internet.
One computer should only be used for general internet surfing just in case it was to obtain a virus such as a Key Stroke Logger so there would be little threat of someone getting your personal information.
Only use second computer to access more sensitive information such as online banking or other important websites that require passwords and important information.
8) Finally, if there are young members of family that have computer use privileges be sure to monitor and restrict sites and programs they are allowed to use.
Many fraudulent individuals love to prey on unexpecting and inexperienced web surfer.
In any case just be certain to contact police or appropriate authorities INSTANT you believe that you have become a victim of Identity Theft or Credit Card Number Theft.
The sooner you tell authorities better chance they can help you recover from a financial catastrophe.
Dan Preston is the webmaster of a site called InfoHeaven Digital Books and The Online Book Store where you can find useful and Fr'ee information along with many how-to digital books that cover a large variety of interesting topics. http://infoheaven-digital-books.com and http://online-book-store.net