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Two Great Tips to Prevent Fraud
Have you ever noticed that almost everyone wants to know the same information that’s on your driver’s license? Your full name, home address, and date of birth are all very important things after all. Telling your friends and family isn’t a big deal, sure, but telling strangers this information is not recommended. Yet, most people give this information away freely in a period where digital law enforcement is weak. Criminals roam around in the digital sphere looking for their next victim. Follow these tips to protect yourself from fraud.
Clean personal information from Google
Most of us have some tidbits of information on Google. That’s how our world is in 2018, but that doesn’t mean that having everything exposed online is okay. Some bits of information definitely shouldn’t be up there. Your full name, mother’s maiden name, past and current addresses, and plenty of other things are meant to be kept offline. If you find an unauthorized autobiography of yourself on Google, then taking it down is in your best interests. We share so much of our lives on social media and online that it’s not an exaggeration to call it an autobiography.
Our thoughts, photos, and people we know are all online protected by a simple privacy toggle. This toggle is a simple switch that enables or disables privacy settings. How many times have you left the lights on accidently? It’s simple as forgetting to hit a switch. Now how many times have you forgotten to change your privacy settings before making a social media post? The number of times is countless in both scenarios. Thus, as the result of our forgetfulness, this private information shows up on Google. Sometimes so much of it shows up on Google without our consent that it really does become an unauthorized autobiography.
Contact Wiperts to see what can be done to protect your privacy. Fraudsters looking to steal your identity gobble personal information up. The more convincing they can sound to credit card companies, the easier time they will have convincing the sales representative to approve the deal – and all sales reps look forward to making a sale. It’s easier for criminals to lie using truthful personal details than to make something up out of thin air.
There’s no reason to lie when the truth is right there on Google for the whole world to see. By cleaning your private information from search engines, it will be harder for criminals and other people to know what’s going on in your life. Only your friends, family, and people you care about should know about your personal affairs.
Your business should be your business. Don’t let criminal enterprises make your business their own. Criminal rings actively work in groups to compile information about people in order to commit identity fraud. One person collects the information, another person finds buyers, and someone else manages the payments made. Of course, not all criminals work in teams and not all criminal rings work in threes, but this should give you a better idea of how cyber theft rings work. With the power of the internet, they can collaborate without sharing a physical hideout or leaving their homes.
Technology has significantly boosted the production capabilities of one person. It only takes one person to successfully steal thousands of dollars while sitting comfortably at home. Criminal rings work together to maximize profits and make stealing more efficient. Coding sophisticated bots to scrape personal information from the internet is not easy for anyone. It takes time and resources, but the rate of return is often worthwhile.
Don’t let this sort of thing happen to you. Wiperts is here to help make your life easier. No one wants criminals to have an easy time stealing private information. Wiperts stops private information from being easily available on Google, Facebook, and a variety of websites. Protecting your privacy means protecting yourself against fraud.
Give your technology some time, care, and love
Most people never clean their computers or smartphones. This digital clutter is worth something to prying eyes. Like important documents disposed of improperly, there’s much to be gained from peering at old digital files. Cleaning, organizing, and device maintenance is important for numerous reasons. If your device is being slow, then you should probably try closing some tabs, deleting old files, clear out your entire web browser, and make sure you shut off your device when you’re done using it or every once in a while.
Deleting apps you don’t use and uninstalling useless programs is a great way to protect yourself. Some software is simply useless and who knows what kind of private information it could be gathering and sending while you’re not looking. This will give your device the added benefit of having less to manage and maintain.
Clearing your web browser is probably one of the most important things you can do. You don’t have to delete everything, but using a web browser with an almost completely clean slate is a good thing. You will be less vulnerable if your web browser is compromised because there’s simply less there to be stolen. Although your web browsing experience may seem slower at first, that’s because your device needs to start from scratch instead of retrieving everything from memory. Starting fresh is a good thing however. It gives your computer a chance to work out any kinks that might have developed from relying on old files.
Cleaning your web browser is easy to do, but cleaning your online footprints is hard to do without professional help. Submitting takedown requests and contacting different companies is not easy. Companies like Google and Facebook have literally billions of users that don’t ever directly give them a dollar, so their customer support tends to be on the weak side. It’s easier to ignore people like us and let the money generating operations continue. In Europe, it has gotten so bad that the European Union had to create a law to address removing personal information from the internet.
