Fraud is one of the most common crimes across the country, and you can be a victim for many months before you realize it’s happening. It also ends up being one of the most costly for victims as a fraudster can clean out your accounts. So, what should you do if you’re a victim of fraud? These four steps will explain the right processes to follow:
Step 1: Freeze Your Accounts
The moment you identify any fraudulent activities on your accounts, notify your bank or credit card provider immediately. Tell them you have unauthorized payments and request that they freeze your accounts or temporarily cancel your cards. This will prevent further fraudulent activities from harming your budget even more. It also ensures that your financial institution can catalog the problem and work with you to solve things as best as they can.
Step 2: Change Your Passwords
Freezing your accounts stops more money from being spent, but you need to go ahead and change all of your passwords. It’s a laborious task but you can’t risk a fraudster hacking your accounts and gaining access to your bank details again. The easiest way to do this is by utilizing a password manager. Some web browsers and mobile operating systems have these for you, and they collect all of your passwords in one place, often with the option to swap them to “stronger” passwords. Take the time to do this as it can prevent fraudsters from coming back and doing the same thing once you reopen your accounts.
Step 3: Report It & Get Legal Advice
Don’t forget to report your acts of fraud to the relevant institutions. As well as notifying your bank/credit card provider, you should submit a case to the FBI through their Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).
Ironically, this doesn’t actually help you, but it helps other people avoid falling for the same scams and allows the FBI to try and find the fraudster. If you require genuine help to recover lost funds as a fraud victim, then contact an identity theft lawyer. They’re the ones with the power to go after the right people and reclaim as much money as possible.
Step 4: Remain Vigilant
Lastly, you need to remain vigilant in the coming days, weeks, months, and years following your incident. If you’ve been a victim of fraud once, there is a higher likelihood you’ll be targeted again. Studies back this up, with the ASU publishing a good one that explains why repeat victimization like this occurs.
To summarize its findings, you’re more likely to become a victim again because the criminal knows you’re vulnerable. Why waste their efforts trying to steal someone else’s identity when they managed it with you before? That’s why you need to be as vigilant as possible by tracking your transactions, changing passwords frequently, and being extremely aware of any potential phishing scams.
Always follow these four steps when you identify fraudulent activity. If you’re lucky, you can react to the problem before you need to seek legal guidance to reclaim lost funds.