That’s bad news for consumers. Experts say that losses from skimming are approaching $1 billion. Nearly one in five fraud victims reported having their credit card PIN or debit card ATM PIN information stolen in 2009, according to Javelin Strategy & Research. And Robert Vamosi, an analyst handling risk, fraud and security at Javelin, sees ATM skimming continuing to rise this year and next.

“Consumers aren’t aware of ATM tampering,” he says. “ATMs have 40 years of trust.”

Skimming isn’t new. It’s been around for at least 10 years. What has changed is that the “technology of the bad guy is getting better and better every year,” says Robert Siciliano, a security expert based in Boston. “It’s up to consumers to watch their own backs.”

Typically, ATM thieves use two devices to capture your PIN and card data. One device sits near where you swipe your card and reads the magnetic stripe on your card with your account number. Even more confusing, the device mimics the card slot. “The technology has evolved to a point where the molded plastic fits like it belongs there,” says Siciliano. Devices are even readily available over the Internet for as little as $300.

A camera, hidden from view, captures the PIN. “You can get the data in real time,” says Siciliano. “You can be in your car with a laptop remotely accessing the device.”

Thieves then burn the data onto a blank card to access your money.

U.S. Secret Service spokesman Max Milien wants consumers to be warned. “The public is notified after an event,” he says. And don’t take bank security for granted. Fraud can occur at any bank in any part of the country. Thieves are even sending out false text alerts to get consumer data.

Banks, they say, are slow to adopt anti-skimming measures. When Javelin surveyed 25 banks, four stood out, though, for their anti-theft measures. They are Bank of America, Chase, Citibank and Wells Fargo.

Experts add that debit card users are most at risk. Typically, consumers must report fraudulent charges within two days, limiting your liability to $50. If you report ATM skimming fraud within 60 days, you’re liable for the first $500 of any transaction. Siciliano adds that thieves carefully orchestrate ATM withdrawals, maxing out cash withdrawals one day and waiting until after midnight for the next stash, which quickly adds up.

Here are four tips to help you protect your account.

1. Cover your password with your hand
Hidden cameras are disguised so they can pick up your password. By protecting it, ATM thieves can’t access your account.
2. Use familiar ATMs and limit your visits
ATMs in dimly lighted spots or used late at night could be more susceptible to fraud, while ATMs under video surveillance can be safer. Stay away from ATMs at retail stores or restaurants, adds Siciliano. Recently, skimming devices were found on ATMs in a popular grocery store in central Florida. Airports, convenience stores or kiosks are equally vulnerable to ATM thieves. Still, even highly trafficked ATMs outside a bank branch have been targeted by thieves.

Also, try to limit your visits to the ATM. “With frequency, there’s risk,” says Siciliano.

3. Check bank balances frequently

Given the two-day window for reporting fraud, it pays to check your account frequently. If you don’t report fraud within 60 days, you have unlimited liability. “Sign up for alerts and notice unusual withdrawals,” says Vamosi.

With credit cards there are more protections in place, and you can dispute charges.”You have at least a billing cycle,” says Siciliano.

4. Observe the ATM
Vamosi cautions consumers to look at an ATM to make sure a card slot is “legitimate and not tacked on.” Look for things that strike you, he says. “Some people have felt that when they inserted their card, something went awry,” he says. In that case, try another ATM.

When protecting your account against ATM thieves, “it’s all about awareness, paying attention and understanding risks,” says Sicilano. “There are 400,000 ATMs and every one of them is susceptible to fraud. The speed and convenience of technology has replaced the security of technology.”

Source: Yahoo

Using a Weak Password

Avoid simple names or words you can find in a dictionary, even with numbers tacked on the end. Instead, mix upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols. A password should have at least eight characters. One good technique is to insert numbers or symbols in the middle of a word, such as this variant on the word “houses”: hO27usEs!

Leaving Your Full Birth Date in Your Profile

It’s an ideal target for identity thieves, who could use it to obtain more information about you and potentially gain access to your bank or credit card account. If you’ve already entered a birth date, go to your profile page and click on the Info tab, then on Edit Information. Under the Basic Information section, choose to show only the month and day or no birthday at all.

Overlooking Useful Privacy Controls

For almost everything in your Facebook profile, you can limit access to only your friends, friends of friends, or yourself. Restrict access to photos, birth date, religious views, and family information, among other things. You can give only certain people or groups access to items such as photos, or block particular people from seeing them. Consider leaving out contact info, such as phone number and address, since you probably don’t want anyone to have access to that information anyway. 

Posting Your Child’s Name in a Caption

Don’t use a child’s name in photo tags or captions. If someone else does, delete it by clicking on Remove Tag. If your child isn’t on Facebook and someone includes his or her name in a caption, ask that person to remove the name.

Mentioning That You’ll Be Away From Home

That’s like putting a “no one’s home” sign on your door. Wait until you get home to tell everyone how awesome your vacation was and be vague about the date of any trip.

Letting Search Engines Find You

To help prevent strangers from accessing your page, go to the Search section of Facebook’s privacy controls and select Only Friends for Facebook search results. Be sure the box for public search results isn’t checked.

Permitting Youngsters to Use Facebook Unsupervised

Facebook limits its members to ages 13 and over, but children younger than that do use it. If you have a young child or teenager on Facebook, the best way to provide oversight is to become one of their online friends. Use your e-mail address as the contact for their account so that you receive their notifications and monitor their activities. “What they think is nothing can actually be pretty serious,” says Charles Pavelites, a supervisory special agent at the Internet Crime Complaint Center. For example, a child who posts the comment “Mom will be home soon, I need to do the dishes” every day at the same time is revealing too much about the parents’ regular comings and goings

Source: Yahoo

Gmail spam expert Brad Taylor said that Google added extra protection last year for PayPal and eBay emails due to the high volume of phishing attacks targeting online payments from these services.

“We do that by looking at the ‘From’ header and when it says ‘ebay.com’ for example, it means it really did come from ebay.com. Anything else is rejected; it won’t even appear in your spam folder because Gmail won’t accept it,” Taylor wrote on Google’s blog.

With the addition of the key icon, Gmail users get the visual confirmation that the emails have been verified as “super-trustworthy,” Taylor said.

The anti-phishing verification is limited to just eBay and PayPal right now, but Google hopes to add more senders to the pool of super-trustworthy email.

Keeping loved ones identities safe and protected, especially in this turbulent economy, is one of the best gifts this Valentine?s Day.?TrustedID?s innovative IDFreeze? identity theft protection services?is the gift that keeps on protecting!

IDFreeze offers 15 points of identity theft protection, including monitoring of credit and debit cards, banking accounts, and Social Security numbers in public and private databases as well as black market Internet areas, and they will alert you if that information is being used inappropriately. TrustedID also offers fraud flag placements that prevent anyone from opening a line of credit without explicit approval, anti-spyware software to protect your online activity, medical benefits protection, lost wallet protection, and free annual credit reports. All these innovative services are supported by TrustedID?s On-Call protection specialists and backed by a $1,000,000 service warranty.

TrustedID is also the only identity theft protection company that provides comprehensive protection for the entire family ? including small children and elderly parents ? under one low priced plan. Children and senior citizens are often targeted by identity thieves, as a child?s blank credit history and an elderly parent?s lifetime savings are particularly attractive targets. Unlike other companies, however, TrustedID goes beyond just checking your child?s credit report and placing fraud alerts on file; they also protect other vulnerable aspects of their identity such as their Social Security number and medical benefits. For one low price, your visitors can enjoy TrustedID?s industry leading services that have been rated the best overall value and best family protection by numerous third parties.

Save 10% and protect your identity with TrustedID

Click Now for Complete Identity Protection for the Entire Family from TrustedID & a 30 Day Risk Free Trial

Guard against Identity Theft with TrustedID. Single and Family Plans Available.

?

• Stopping Identity Theft, 10 Easy Steps to Security by TrustedID CEO Scott Mitic will be on sale March 15th. More details to follow shortly!
• TrustedID was recently featured on QVC with the renowned financial expert Suze Orman.
• The biggest data breach ever disclosed was announced Tuesday, January 20th. A major payment processor, which claims that 40% of their processed transactions are from restaurants across the country, admitted that tens of millions of credit and debit card transactions were compromised. This data breach disclosure event follows two other data breach events in 2008 in which over 5 million credit and debit accounts were compromised.

?With increased visibility and data breaches compromising more identities, more and more people are turning to TrustedID for peace of mind and the industry?s best identity theft protection service

Enjoy a safer 2009 with complete identity theft protection from TrustedID. Their flagship service, IDFreeze?, keeps users safe with 15 points of protection ranging from proactive credit, bank account, social security and even medical data scanning and alerts, to lost wallet protection, spyware protection, and free credit reports, all of which is supported by our protection specialists that are on-call 24/7 and backed by our $1,000,000 warranty protection.

Creative, Coupons & Content
They still have a 10% off coupon available for you! Take advantage of great saving
Save 10% and protect your identity with TrustedID
Save 10% and protect your identity with TrustedID

New Years Resolution #1: Protect Yourself from Identity Theft with TrustedID!

More specifically, FACTA requires a written ID theft prevention policy that includes polices that identify ?patterns, practices or specific activities that could indicate identity theft,? according to the FTC (Federal Trade Commission). Violators of the new rules can be subject to civil penalties of up to $2,500 per violation.

The new regulations ? also known as Red Flag rules ? have long been thought to only apply to financial institutions such as banks, savings and loans, mortgage lenders and credit unions, but as the compliance deadline nears, SMBs (small and midsize businesses) are concerned the rules may also cover them. While clearly targeting financial institutions, the rules also cover ?any person or business? that arranges for customer credit.

The agency defines a creditor as ?any entity that regularly extends, renews, or continues credit; any entity that regularly arranges for the extension, renewal, or continuation of credit; or any assignee of an original creditor who is involved in the decision to extend, renew, or continue credit.?

A business alert issued by the FTC adds, ?Accepting credit cards as a form of payment does not in and of itself make an entity a creditor.?
The FTC added the Red Flag rules to FACTA in January. Businesses are required to define policies for recognizing red flags in identity verification. Typical red flags include discrepancies in address histories, fraud alerts on consumer reports, questionable use of Social Security numbers, credit freeze notifications and unusual patterns of customer activities.

Once those definitions are in place, companies are then required to define appropriate courses of action when a red flag drops.

The Center is the first of its kind to bring cross-disciplinary experts in criminal justice, financial crime, biometrics, cybercrime and cyber defense, data protection, homeland security and national defense to address identity management challenges that impact individuals, public safety, commerce, government programs and national security.

The group consists of non-profit, public sector and corporate institutions, including Indiana University, U.S. Secret Service, LexisNexis, IBM, Cogent Systems, Visa and Intersections. CAIMR aims to identify the key challenges, the gaps in knowledge and the research needed to provide solutions to these challenges.

TrustedID?s? mission is to proactively protect consumers against identity theft, especially as identity theft is the fastest growing crime in the United States. Our innovative flagship product ? IDFreeze? – stops identity theft before it ever happens. Secured from identity theft by our 15 points of protection which includes protection for children, seniors, and medical records, over 97% of our customers are extremely satisfied, loyal, and, most importantly, protected, Please Click on following banner to find out more!

The checks bounced after the man cashed them at PLS Check Cashing in Freeport, causing a $32,000 loss to the check cashing agency.

Stephen Takats, 44, of Papoose Lane, was charged with first-degree identity theft, first-degree fraud and third-degree grand larceny in the May 13 check-cashing scheme.