Consumers Hit With $14 Billion in Unwanted Card Charges

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A new report by BillGuard examines the problems credit and debit cardholders are having with grey charges. Every year, millions of American consumers are forced or misled into paying fees and charges they never wanted or intended to pay. These charges, called ‘grey charges’, are typically small in nature, buried in terms of service agreements, and are written in a way that often confuses the average consumer.

The report discusses all 11 kinds of deceptive grey charges, including ‘free to paid’. The worst of the grey charges, it equates to approximately 115 million transactions, resulting in $6 billion in losses to consumers. An example of a free to paid grey charge is when a retailer offers a product for free during a trial period with a product return policy that is often misleading with obscure shipping dates, ultimately resulting in a charge the consumer didn’t want.

The problem with grey charges stems from the fact that they aren’t illegal. As a result, the existing laws on the books can’t stop them. Therefore, consumers must take control over their finances and card charges by exploring other opportunities and options.

The best option available is the BillGuard’s iPhone app. The free app intelligently prioritizes noteworthy, recent, and recurring charges across all of a cardholder’s credit and debit cards. The app uses crowdsourced analytics from BillGuard’s national Transaction Intelligence Network™ to help users quickly spot and recognize charges deemed questionable by other cardholders on their cards.

Robert Siciliano is a personal security expert & and is the author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Identity Was Stolen. See him knock’em dead in this identity theft prevention video. Disclosures. For Roberts FREE ebook text- SECURE Your@emailadress -to 411247.

5 Tips to Becoming Digitally Secure

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Your digital life and your physical life coexist like land and sky which meet at the horizon all day and night. This means while you are present here on the ground, you also exist online. Coming to terms with this reality will help you make better decisions about securing that online self.

  1. Get device proficient: On a laptop, desktop, Mac, tablet, or smartphone, figure out what you’re doing. Take the time to learn enough about your electronics to become an expert on them.
  2. Become socially savvy: Use your devices to communicate socially. Keep in mind that online is forever. Consider that years from now, that information could be damaging or embarrassing. Assume everything you post is public and will be searchable forever, even with the strongest privacy settings available.
  3. Google your online reputation: Search your name and see what’s being said. There are plenty of websites that know who you are and mention you in some fashion. Creating your online persona socially will help establish your online presence.
  4. Invest in security: It’s not just your PCs—your identity, hardware and software are being targeted by criminals 24/7/365. Use common sense and know that if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. Today’s tools can insulate you from many criminal tactics and even help you locate a missing device. Whenever using free wireless, know that chances are someone is snooping on your communications. Get a VPN (Virtual Private Network)to protect your digital communications.
  5. Use effective passwords: “Princess” and “123456” are not strong passwords. Combine uppercase and lowercase letters with numbers and other characters.

Robert Siciliano is an Identity Theft Expert to Hotspot Shield VPN. He is the author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Identity Was Stolen See him discussing internet and wireless security on Good Morning America. Disclosures. For Robert’s FREE ebook text- SECURE Your@emailaddress -to 411247.

What are the Risks from Mobile Eavesdropping?

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Ever heard of mobile snoopware? For those affected, it’s unnerving and creates a sense of paranoia. I’ve worked with families that found spyware on their phones designed to watch their every move. The hacker, they say, turned their mobiles on and off, used the phone’s camera to take pictures, and use the speakerphone as a bug. All year long I receive emails from people who have experienced the same issues. Scary.

Mobile carrier networks are encrypted and aren’t likely to be snooped on, but they have been cracked. WiFi, on the other hand, is extremely vulnerable. There are a few ways to snoop on a mobile:

  • GPRS cracks: A phone’s 3G connection sometimes defaults to the hacker-created General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) if 3G isn’t available.
  • Bluetooth recorders: If you pair a Bluetooth headset with a phone, the sound comes through the earpiece—just as does a Bluetooth recorder sold through spy shops will. However, this often requires a hacker to have direct access to your mobile device.
  • Spyware device in hand: Snooping tools can monitor calls and texts. It’s legal when the phone’s owner installs it, such as a parent monitoring his or her kid’s phone.
  • Spyware remote install: Spyware doesn’t require physical access to the device when a user clicks an infected link or the device is on a free unsecured wireless connection.
  • Cracking encryption: Don’t worry about it unless you are a high-end executive or a government agent; in that case, anyway, you probably own a device that has advanced encryption in the hardware and software.
  • Bluetooth: Require a password to access your device and turn off Bluetooth. As always, keep the device close.
  • Spyware: Keep your device’s antivirus updated and beware of what links you click.
  • WiFi hacks: Use a virtual private network such as Hotspot Shield VPN.

Protect yourself from eavesdropping:

Robert Siciliano is an Identity Theft Expert to Hotspot Shield VPN. He is the author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Identity Was Stolen See him discussing internet and wireless security on Good Morning America. Disclosures. For Roberts FREE ebook text- SECURE Your@emailaddress -to 411247.

Where You’ll Get Hacked

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Criminal hackers are targeting large enterprises and breaching millions of records every year. They are also targeting small mom-and-pop operations that don’t have the security budgets the big companies do. But you and I, the lowly consumer, are also being targeted because many of us are clueless when it comes to information security.

Some unfortunate and frankly unsurprising statistics:

  • 98%: credit cards being the primary data type stolen by criminal hackers in 2011 and 2012
  • 12.6 million: victims of identity theft in 2012
  • 3 seconds: how often someone becomes a victim of identity theft
  • $21 billion: financial losses to identity theft in 2012
  • 7%: percentage of American households falling victim to identity theft in 2012
  • 47%: hacker attacks using remote access, perhaps in the form of a Trojan that compromises a username or password, or by a victim giving up passwords in a phishing attack that gives hackers back-door access to a network or PC.
  • 1%: data compromised as a result of physical theft of a device. If that device isn’t password protected and/or encrypted, the information is up for grabs.
  • 72%: victims of a mock phishing scam who believed their friend was sending them a fraudulent link. This tells me people are too trusting.
  • 19%: home/office WiFi users who still use WEP encryption, which is very hackable. Use WPA2, which is much more secure.
  • 89%: public WiFi that is unsecured. So any time you use public WiFi, use Hotspot Shield VPN.
  • 10%: amount of spam that’s virus laden

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How do you protect yourself from this mess?

  1. Create strong passwords using letters (uppercase/lowercase) and numbers.
  2. Use a secure updated browser and only plug in personal information when it reads HTTPS (S means it’s secure) in the address bar.
  3. Disable autorun, which can automatically download and install software—including malware.
  4. When using public WiFi, disable sharing and use a VPN to encrypt your online traffic.

Robert Siciliano is an Identity Theft Expert to Hotspot Shield VPN. He is the author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Identity Was Stolen See him discussing internet and wireless security on Good Morning America. Disclosures. For Robert’s FREE ebook text- SECURE Your@emailaddress -to 411247.

Healthcare Workers Indicted for Identity Theft

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A wise man once said, “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” The wolf in sheep’s clothing refers to someone in a role contrary to his or her character and with whom contact is dangerous. In other words, sometimes it’s the people we trust the most that commit the worst crimes. And it’s often the people who are the most vulnerable that are victimized.

In Virginia, HamptonRoads.com reports, “Two former health care nurse’s aides were indicted on charges of stealing the identities of at least a dozen patients as part of an elaborate scheme that netted more than $116,000 in fraudulent tax refunds. The men would take names, birth dates and Social Security numbers and give them to other people. Those accomplices, not identified in the indictment, would file false income tax returns collect refunds. Those refunds ranged from about $999 to $7,300, the indictment said.”

The boss of the alleged thieves stated, “We take the protection of patient information entrusted to us very seriously and have safeguards in place.” He added that “every employee is required to sign a pledge each year promising to protect patient information.”

This is hardly a new phenomenon. When I was in my early 20s, I knew a guy who worked as a home healthcare clinician and did this to his elderly patients. He had a cocaine problem and was just a nasty human being to begin with.

If you or anyone in your family is under the care of “professionals” who are put in a position of trust, know that trust is no more than a signed pledge away from being broken.

The best protection against identity theft is a combination of credit freezing and identity theft protection. Tax-related identity theft can’t be protected by either; however, the restorative component of an identity theft protection service may assist you in cleaning up the mess. Before making an investment, ask what is offered and if the service will do anything to prevent or fix tax-related identity theft.

Robert Siciliano is an identity theft expert to BestIDTheftCompanys.com discussing identity theft prevention. For Robert’s FREE ebook, text SECURE Your@emailaddress to 411247.

Do You Know Who’s Spying on You?

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There have multiple revelations about government agencies spying on their citizens, which, frankly, should come as no surprise. But there are also several others who are also spying on you, and often you’ve given them permission to do so.

  • Hackers: Routers can be hacked if not properly secured. Spyware can be installed if your PC doesn’t have antivirus, antispyware, antiphishing and a firewall.
  • Internet service providers: The company that provides you your internet connection collects data about you that is stored on its servers and is available to law enforcement with a warrant or corporations that feel you violated copyright.
  • Employers: Like it or not, your employer owns the devices it provides you, and in some cases can access the devices you own if they are used for company communications.
  • Identity thieves: Criminals set up shop looking for potential victims of their multitude of scams. They check you out via social media or simply pick you at random via a phishing email. But once they connect with you, they research your IP address—and everything else they can find about you—to make their scam more believable.
  • Websites: Sites install cookies in your browser to track where you go and what you click. The purpose of this is to send you targeted ads and sell you stuff.

Prevent spying:

  1. Lock down your wireless router using its built-in security settings that have WPA2 encryption. Your router’s wizard will walk you through the process.
  2. Update your browser, OS-critical security patches, antivirus, antispyware, antiphishing and firewall.
  3. Set your browser to clear your cache daily.
  4. At work, just work. No playing online.
  5. Lock down your social profiles and say little. Keep it professional.
  6. Use a VPN (i.e Hotspot Shield VPN) to mask your IP address and protect your internet traffic from snoops.

Robert Siciliano is an Identity Theft Expert to Hotspot Shield VPN. He is the author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Identity Was Stolen See him discussing internet and wireless security on Good Morning America. Disclosures. For Roberts FREE ebook text- SECURE Your@emailaddress -to 411247.

15 Tips to Prevent Identity Theft

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There at least 99 things to know about how to prevent identity theft. Below is a good starting point.

Tips:

  1. Watch your bank accounts online and examine your statements frequently.
  2. Opt out of preapproved credit cards. Go to https://www.optoutprescreen.com/?rf=t to get started.
  3. Check your credit for free at https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp. You can do this up to three times a year.
  4. Dispute unauthorized credit accounts with the issuing lender.
  5. Don’t leave keys, purses, wallets, mobiles or laptops in your car or unlocked gym locker. Keep your stuff with you, or at least lock it up and hide it.
  6. Keep purses and wallets close. When you aren’t looking, thieves will steal a credit card from your open purse and you might not know it for days.
  7. Watch your credit card statements as closely as your bank statements, especially after you use your card.
  8. Watch clerks at checkout to make sure they aren’t double-swiping your credit card and skimming your information off the magnetic strip.
  9. Beware of ATM skimmers. Poke around the card slot and make sure there isn’t an extra façade that can be pulled off.

10. Check fraud happens when criminals get hold of your check routing and account numbers at the bottom of the check. Again, watch your bank statements.

11. Put your mail in a blue post office-issued mailbox or at the post office—not in your own mailbox with the flag up.

12. Never wire money to strangers online. If you are buying something off classifieds or receive an email or phone call from someone, even a family member in distress, it is probably a scam.

13. Lock down your PC with antivirus, antispyware, antiphishing and a firewall.

14. Update your digital devices’ operating systems critical security patches.

15. Invest in identity theft protection. You can and should do all of the above, but you still can be victimized because some big company gets hacked.

 

Security Measures for the Wealthy vs. for the Rest of Us

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“Wealthy,” by some standards, might mean being in the top one percent of earners today in the US, which is $370,000 a year. Otherwise, the “bottom” 95 percent is making less than $150,000 a year, and then 75 percent of the population makes less than $66,000 a year. Depressed? Sorry; the point of this post is to provide you with options that the wealthy might use for security vs. what everyone else considers affordable.

  • Home security: Alarm systems today can cost from under a hundred dollars to several thousand. Celebs and CEOs often invest heavily in all the bells and whistles, whereas all we of more modest means really need is a simple system to protect our doors and windows that also comes with a siren and is possibly connected to a monitoring station at the price of a dollar a day. Even cheapo stickers and signs on eBay offer a layer of protection.
  • Auto security: You could ride like Kanye West in an armored car costing several hundred thousand dollars…or you could install some tinted windows, take a defensive driving course and toss in a kill switch for a few bucks.
  • Personal security: If your name is Larry Ellison (CEO of Oracle), you might drop $1.7 million on bodyguards and everything else. Otherwise, take a self-defense course utilizing adrenal stress training.
  • Information security: Budgeting for information security is often relative to the amount and kind of data that needs protecting. So a big company should be spending big bucks, whereas for $49.95 you should be renewing your antivirus every year.
  • Identity theft security: For 10 bucks a month, anyone can protect his or her identity with identity theft protection. For almost free, everyone should get a credit freeze. I do both and recommend you do the same.
  • Wireless security: The beauty here is that protecting a wireless connection can be free via a free VPN service from Hotspot Shield. And for another few bucks, you can get a paid version that’s ad-free and faster—and you don’t need to be wealthy to afford it.

Robert Siciliano is an Identity Theft Expert to Hotspot Shield VPN. He is the author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Identity Was Stolen See him discussing internet and wireless security on Good Morning America. Disclosures. For Roberts FREE ebook text- SECURE Your@emailaddress -to 411247

Contactless Challenge Revisited: Final Thoughts

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The Gemalto Contactless Challenge kicked off in the United States June 10th, with two bloggers from Austin, Texas and Salt Lake City, Utah, respectively, putting contactless payment infrastructure to the test.

The Isis Consortium of AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless chose Austin and Salt Lake City to pilot its mobile wallet using near field communication (NFC) technology because both cities are innovative and tech savvy and have systems in place that accept NFC.

The Contactless Challenge was designed to show how anyone with basic tech skills can ditch his or her leather wallet and use a so-called digital wallet. One blogger used an Android phone that had NFC built in. But, like me, he owns an iPhone 5, which does not support NFC. My understanding is that there are plans to produce a snap-on case that supports the capabilities and features required to make NFC work on the iPhone—which would be essential for Contactless to work, as iPhones are almost 50 percent market share.

During the Challenge, one of the challenges was that contactless payments weren’t offered, or the payments failed at the point of sale, which frankly is a bit disappointing. As a society we are stuck on card technology, and the major card issuers haven’t really made it a priority to require merchants to accept contactless payments just yet. It will happen eventually; I just want it NOW!

As Josh Kerr, one of the bloggers in the Challenge, points out: “This technology is ready for mainstream. In fact, the only real thing holding it back is that not all merchants accept it. I see that changing over time as merchants upgrade their credit card terminals to ones that support wireless forms of payment. This will happen automatically, but it could take a while before it is ubiquitous.”

Agreed, Josh, agreed!

Robert Siciliano, is a personal security expert contributor to Just Ask Gemalto and author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Mobile was Hacked! . Disclosures

Your Government Can’t Protect You From Identity Theft

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I’ve always marveled at the law enforcement motto, “To Serve and Protect.” While honorable, it’s essentially a slogan that presents our government representatives’ best intentions because in reality they can’t proactively 100 percent protect us the way we believe or expect them to do so. “Where’s a cop when you need one?” people say.

But it’s really not law enforcement’s job to protect everyone, everywhere, all day. We’d need a cop in every driveway all day long to really protect us. And even our government at its highest levels can’t effectively do the job in fully protecting us.

The ParamusPost does a fine job summing it up by pointing out, “The US federal government is taking steps to help consumers protect their identities. In 2006, the President’s Task Force on Identity Theft was created. This organization is tasked with the job of improving law enforcement abilities, improving consumer education, and setting governmental safeguards to protect against identity theft. Additionally, the Fair Credit Reporting Act provides consumers with access to information contained on credit reports, which were once off-limits to the average consumer. This law also puts requirements in place for accuracy in reporting, such as the ability for a consumer to report inaccuracies and potential identity theft to the credit bureaus. While this is a good start, it is ultimately up to the consumer to take actions to prevent the loss of personal identity.”

Yes, ultimately this is your problem.

Here’s what I suggest:

  1. Shred. If it’s got your name, account numbers or address, don’t throw it away—destroy it.
  2. Lock your mailbox. Buy a locking mailbox so your mail is safe from theft.
  3. Antivirus. Protect your PC with all the software necessary to prevent spyware.
  4. Identity theft protection. Invest in services that will monitor your identity and restore it in the event it’s stolen.

Robert Siciliano is an identity theft expert to BestIDTheftCompanys.com discussing identity theft prevention. For Robert’s FREE ebook, text SECURE Your@emailaddress to 411247. Disclosures.