The Internet can often act as a breeding ground for financial fraud – but if you know where to look, there are plenty of online tools to help prevent fraud from ever happening.
Kiplinger outlines a few of the best fraud prevention tools in November’s Retirement Report. Some services that help prevent fraudulent credit card transactions:
New smartphone apps and online services are also helping seniors and their caregivers detect fraudulent transactions quickly. These services can alert you to massive cyberattacks as well as small-scale abuse, such as a caregiver making personal purchases with your credit card. The senior — or trusted relatives or friends he has designated to help oversee his account — will receive alerts about questionable transactions, which can then be verified.
With Tischler’s EverSafe service (www.eversafe.com), launched earlier this year, users can register their credit cards, bank and investment accounts. For $4.99 a month, the service will scan up to five accounts daily, searching for suspicious activity. (A version that includes credit-report monitoring costs $9.99 a month.) Red flags will be raised, for example, if there are suddenly a series of ATM withdrawals for a senior who generally doesn’t use ATMs or if total monthly spending falls far outside of the user’s typical pattern.
BillGuard, a free app for iPhone and Android devices, also lets users link up credit- and debit-card accounts so that they can quickly review transactions and follow up on any suspicious activity. If other BillGuard users flag transactions with a specific merchant as suspicious, you’ll be alerted to review any transactions you made with that merchant.
Two other useful options:
For seniors who are struggling to manage their money, a new prepaid Visa card is designed to circumvent fraudsters while preserving a senior’s ability to make financial transactions. The True Link Financial card (www.truelinkcard.com), which charges a $10 monthly fee, allows adult children or caregivers to monitor a senior’s spending, block payments to particular merchants, set spending limits by category, and receive text messages if suspicious activity occurs.
To stay abreast of the latest online scams, visit AARP’s newly launched Fraud Watch Network at www.aarp.org/fraudwatchnetwork. The site offers an interactive map showing law-enforcement warnings for your state, scam prevention tips and an option to sign up for e-mail alerts on the latest scams.
Photo Credit: Don Hankins via Flickr Creative Commons License
