Fraud and Security Information

Tips to Prevent Bank Fraud and Identity Theft

While the Internet provides convenience, it also presents criminals with new avenues to steal your personal information. Farmers Savings Bank & Trust views the security of our customers’ information as a top priority, so we have compiled a few tips to help prevent identity theft and fraud and how to spot a fake email that is a phishing scam.

Identity Theft and Fraud Prevention

The following tips are things you can do every day to ensure the protection of your personal information. The number one rule is follow your gut feelings; if you feel like a situation is suspicious, then you are more than likely to be correct.

• Verify the identity of anyone asking for personal or financial information; do not give it out automatically to anyone who asks for it.
• If your debit/credit card or check book is lost or stolen, notify Farmers Savings Bank & Trust immediately.
• Be sure to review monthly statements for suspicious activity. Report anything you find to Farmers Savings Bank & Trust.
• Shred any financial documents or documents with personal information on them before recycling them.
• Memorize your Social Security number; do not carry your card around with you.
• When online shopping check the address bar to ensure the website starts with “https” AND has a padlock there or at the bottom of the browser window before entering any payment information.
• If you have not gotten your regular bills from a company, notify them that you have not received them.
• Check your credit report annually at www.annualcreditreport.com.

What to do if you think your identity has been stolen.

1. Place a fraud alert on your credit reports by calling the three major credit reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian and Transunion).
2. Contact Farmers Savings Bank & Trust so we can help you close the affected accounts.
3. File a complaint with the FTC.
4. Call your local police department and file a police report. If the fraud occurred in a different area you can try filing a report with the local police department there as well.

How to Spot a Phishing Scam

Phishing scams have become a favorite tool of online criminals to steal your usernames, passwords, credit card information and even money. In a phishing scam, you will receive an email that looks like it is from an authoritative source. While it may seem genuine, a phishing email contains several clues that it should not be trusted:

• The “From” field- you most likely will not recognize the email address. It may also be an odd spellings of an authoritative email, such as the following examples "support@micorsoft.com" or "IT@ebray.com".
• The “To” field- phishing scams are generally sent to either random email lists or a bunch of people at the same company with names that start with the same letter.
• Email subject line- watch out for vague subject lines, subject lines advertising a deal that is too good to be true or has a limited time span, or emails that “require your immediate attention.”
• Email body- lots of grammatical errors signifies a phishing scam. You can also check if the body of an email is an image by clicking and dragging. If it is an image, the email is definitely a scam.
• Links- to check the legitimacy of links in an email, hover over them to see their destination address. If it is something random or an address you do not recognize, DO NOT click on it.
• Attachments- DO NOT open attachments in an email unless it is from a trusted source. These attachments can have viruses or trojans that can access your personal information. Risky attachments have file extensions like .exe, .scr, .zip, .com, and .bat.
• A request for personal information- Farmers Savings Bank & Trust, as well as other financial institutions, will generally never send an email asking for personal or account information. Emails are not secure, meaning your personal information can be intercepted. Any email requesting you send personal information via email should be deleted immediately.