Identity theft is a rapidly expanding crime. Identity theft happens when a criminal gets ahold of your credit card number or social security number and any other personally identifiable information anyone uses that to make purchases using your identity. They get a bunch of stuff for free and you get stuck with the bill. As a consumer there are simple things you can do to protect yourself from identity theft. In addition, as a merchant who allows your customers to pay you through merchant services solutions you have an important job in protecting your customers from being victims of identify theft.
How to Protect Yourself From Identify Theft
- Shred up personal documents, bank statements, credit card statements, or anything with your social security number on it before you through it out.
- Do not save personally identifiable information such as your social security number on your home PC. In addition, protect your home PC with a firewall and require a password to login to your computer.
- Do not give out your social security number online.
- Do not make a purchase online unless the ecommerce merchant you are buying from has encryption on their website.
- Signup for LifeLock to get instant alerts if someone commits identity theft against you and get identify theft insurance so you are never stuck with the financial losses of identity theft. I am a customer and I am a fan of it.
How to Protect your Customers From Identity Theft Through Effective Merchant Services Processing
- Be PCI complaint and be smart about how you accept payments and store customers payment information.
- Do not accept payments through old and outdated merchant equipment – in other words only use approved merchant equipment.
- Only use the highest forms of encryption when accepting payments online – in other words only accept payments through Authorize.net or PlugNPay.
- Store all data securely. In other words do not store credit card data in any place but within your merchant equipment or software.
- If accepting payments online use the latest and best breed of anti-fraud prevention tools such as PlugNPay’s, FraudTrak2.
If you do all of the above you will be as close as you can be to completely protecting yourself and your customers form fraud and identity theft.
