SALT LAKE CITY — Christmas wish lists change from year to year.
What’s probably not on your list: identity theft. But unfortunately, that’s the gift that keeps on giving.
“How you engage in transactions and prove that you are you, that data in the wrong hands can do all of those things, depending on how much of it they have and frankly, how persistent the bad actor wants to be,” said Eva Velasquez, CEO of the Identity Theft Resource Center.
Velasquez hears hundreds of stories every year about consumers’ bank accounts being compromised. She says your bank account number on its own doesn’t do much, but once someone knows your bank’s routing number, which is public information, much harm can be done.
“Things like taking that information and opening another account at the financial institution can happen, and then they can start filtering money out,” said Velasquez. “Maybe you don’t notice they move it over to this other account — that’s as easy as a transfer, and the next thing you know, that money is gone.”
And it doesn’t stop there. They will use a little information about you to get even more information out of you.
“The scammers will use that information that they have to contact you and give themselves some credibility and legitimacy," Velasquez said. "They say, ‘Hey, I’m with your bank, we’ve noticed some suspicious activity. Are you Eva Velasquez with this account number?’ And you go, ‘Oh yes, that’s me, how would they know that if it wasn’t my bank?’ And then they start asking you for more information and more details and more ways that you verify that you are you."
The goal is to give them as little opportunity as possible to get a hold of your info. That may be difficult, seeing as we’re all online, where every scroll and click can be tracked.
However, Velasquez shared some tried and true methods of identity theft prevention:
“My top three: freeze your credit, upgrade your password game — don’t use the same easy password across all of your accounts — and enable MFA (multi-factor authentication) or better yet, passkeys,” said Velasquez.
But nothing can beat good old-fashioned consumer savvy.
“Adopting this sort of skeptical mindset, we really have to understand the value of our identities out there in the wild and that your identity data and your identity is just as valuable as the cash that you have in the bank,” said Velasquez. “If you treat it that way, that can help you adopt this attitude of protection.”
Velasquez says good financial advice would dictate not to overuse your credit card at this time of year to avoid debt. But she encourages consumers shopping online to use a credit card because it does provide better protections than your debit card.
