Keep Your Loved Ones Safe From Financial Fraud

Growing up, money was something that was not discussed in our home.
I had a million questions about the subject but I was taught that it was impolite to talk about.
We want money to be a regular topic of conversation in our home to establish money smarts from an early age. With ever-evolving technology, parents today have more to worry about than just educating their children on the basics of saving and spending.
Kids have access to technology from very early ages, so it’s important to be educating them on even bigger matters such as financial fraud.

Most Canadians know better than to share their PIN with a stranger or to click on unknown links in text messages, but our children may not and it is our job to educate them.
Did you know that 85 per cent of Canadians worry that they are their loved ones will be a victim of financial fraud?

TD has compiled several tips on how to help protect your loved ones from financial fraud.

·       Pay attention to your fraud alerts – Banks are increasingly using text messaging to communicate with their customers. For example, TD Fraud Alerts are texts that notify a customer if TD detects suspicious activity made with their TD Access Card on their personal banking accounts. The customer can reply to the alert with a simple "Y" or "N" to confirm whether they recognize the transaction and TD will unblock or block their TD Access Card accordingly based on the response. TD will never ask a customer to reply to a Fraud Alert text with any personal information or ask customers to click on any links in their reply.

·       Protect your PIN and guard your cheques – The only person who should know your PIN is you – not even your bank knows it. Don't ever give out your PIN, whether in person, over the phone, online or by mail. You should also never leave your cheques unattended and if your chequebook is lost or stolen, call your bank immediately.

·       Don't be fooled by phishing – Exercise caution when receiving unsolicited e-mails containing attachments or asking you to click a link and provide sensitive information. Banks will not ask you to provide personal information, or login information such as usernames, passwords, PINs, security questions and answers, or account numbers, through unsolicited e-mail.

·       Verify if it's real – If you receive an unexpected and too-good-to-be-true cheque, chances are it may be fraudulent. It's always important to know who you're doing business with.
  • Check your statements, online accounts or banking apps regularly – This will alert you to fraudulent transactions more quickly. Money management apps, like the TD MySpend app, can be helpful tools since they help TD customers to be aware of certain types of transactions on eligible TD accounts and credit cards. The TD MySpend app provides notifications of spend transactions in real-time, which helps make it easy for customers to recognize a fraudulent purchase quickly.
A few years ago, my husband and I were the victims of financial fraud.
Someone obtained our card number and used it to produce counterfeit cards. Because I check our account activity regularly with the TD Online Banking App, I was able to see fraudulent transactions being made in another province. I immediately called the bank and they were able to put a hold on our account and return our money.

As for my children , we recently took our oldest daughter to open up her very own bank account with TD and one of the first things we taught her was how to check her account activity online. 
You may be thinking it isn’t important for an eight year old, but a lot of financial problems stem from bad money habits, and the earlier good habits are established, the better.
If I wasn’t in the habit of regularly checking our account activity and balances we could have had a much bigger problem on our hands when we were the victims of financial fraud.

Our daughter knows that having a bank account is a big girl responsibility.
 Although we hold onto her card at home, she knows her PIN and we have taught her to keep that number private.
She knows that no one, not even the bank, should know that number.

Kids use emails for school purposes from a younger age than ever before, so it’s important we teach them how to spot these dangerous emails, as debit and credit card fraud is becoming more sophisticated then ever.
I’ve taught my daughter to never click on any links or attachments without checking with an adult first and to never give away any personal information.




Financial Fraud can be scary but prevention is key.
Click here for more great tips from TD on preventing fraud.

Disclosure: This post is part of the YummyMummyClub.ca and TD sponsored program. I received compensation as a thank you for my participation. This post reflects my personal opinion about the information provided by the sponsors.
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