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Protect Your Financial Information

February 2009

By Judge Jeff Cox

I usually like to write a column on scams at the beginning of the year to remind my readers to be careful.

The first scam comes by the way of the credit card. Someone sounding official will call you and tell you that they are from your credit card company. They will have your name, address, billing address, telephone number, and usually all information that you think the credit card company should have. The person on the line will tell you that a fake charge appears to have been made to your credit card and they need to confirm whether or not you made this charge. The person on the other end will say a charge of $400.00 has been made to your account. They then ask you to confirm or deny if this amount has been charged.

Now, when you say that you did not charge this amount, the person on the other end of the line will state they didn’t think so. They will tell you in order to start the credit card fraud process you must turn the card over and give them the seven numbers on the back of the card. Once you do this, then the person on the other end of the line thanks you and tells you the charge will be removed from the card. However, when you give those seven numbers on the back of the card to the person, that person then can charge items on your card. In most cases, a $400 charge is made to the card. Once you call your credit card company to complain and tell them about what happened, the credit card company will advise you that you have been scammed. The credit card company or anyone from it will never ask you for the seven numbers on the back of the card. You, the credit card holder, will have to possibly close your credit card account in order to protect your identity and have a new credit card issued.

The second scam also involves your credit cards. Make sure that you watch the person running your credit card, if you can. A company has developed a scanner that will allow all of your information to be stored on a chip and that chip can be used to make another credit card with your information. If you can, it is best to use cash or checks to pay for purchases, especially in places where you are not familiar with the staff.

The third scam is always around it seems. A person has a cashiers check drawn on a bank from our country but they are from another country and need help getting the check cashed. The check looks very official and its usually for a large sum of money. They need a person to cash the check and send them the money. They usually tell the person receiving the check that if they send them half the face amount of the check they can keep the other half for their trouble. The person cashing the check deposits it in their account and sends the money to the person in the other country. By the time the person sending the money finds out the check is bogus, the money has already arrived to the other person and they are long gone. If you get any type of check from someone you don’t know, remember you never get anything for nothing. These are usually scams. Thoroughly investigate the matter before sending any money. Call the bank listed on the check and see if any monies are in the account listed or even if the bank exists. Almost 100% of the time, no money will be in the account.   

The moral of the story, as always, is be careful who gets access to your financial information.

Judge Jeff Cox is the 26th Judicial Court Judge for Bossier, Webster Parishes, Division C.