The Return of an Old Scam

Posted on by HV Shred

Among our favorite resources for best practices in identity theft protection is the “OnGuard Online Blog”.  A recent blog posted by Consumer Education Specialist Amy Hebert alerted the public to the return of an old scam: The FTC Imposter Scam.

An email arrives in your inbox that tells you there’s a complaint against your business, and wants you to click on a link. Here’s what one of the scammy emails said:

“This notification has been automatically sent to you because we have received a consumer complaint, claiming that your company is violating the CCPA (Consumer Credit Protection Act).
According to our policy, we have initiated a formal investigation before taking legal action. You can download the document containing the complaint and the plaintiff contact information, from…” followed by a link.

At first glance, it might look legitimate. It has the FTC seal, the email appears to come from an FTC email address, and the web address looks like it goes to an FTC site. But if you hover over the web address, you’ll see the link actually sends you somewhere else.

If you get an email like this, don’t open it. And most important: don’t click on the links. Don’t open any attachments, either. If you do, you could install malware on your computer, causing your device to crash, or allowing a scammer to monitor and control your online activity, steal your personal information, send spam, and commit fraud. You can forward the phony email to spam@uce.gov — but then delete it.

Government imposters aren’t just impersonating the FTC. If you get an unexpected email that says it’s from the government and asks you to click on links, open attachments, or share personal information, don’t do it. Even if you think it’s legitimate, it’s best to look up the number and contact the agency directly to check it out.

For more on best practices regarding identity theft protection, please visit www.hvshred.com

Independence Holiday Blog

Posted on by HV Shred

With Independence Day on the horizon, at HV Shred we’d like to offer the business community a world independent from the expense and heartbreak of security breaches; the hassle of removing staples and paper clips, and the frustration and danger of overheating and paper jammed office shredders. Not to mention the noise of the in house shredder along with the dusty bags of shredded paper; it’s a world where shredded paper saves trees and water and oil.

This is the world of on-site service with HV Shred.

We are thankful for the many offices throughout the Hudson Valley business community that have already engaged our services and welcome the contact from any office doing on-call file purging and/or has on-going needs to securely and sustainably dispose of confidential paperwork.

We shred on-site; we provide the certificate of destruction, and we recycle everything we shred!

For more information, please visit our website www.hvshred.com

Be Wary of Gift Card Scams

Posted on by HV Shred

With education as a main thrust for our weekly blog, one of our “go to” resources is the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3): a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C)

The latest IC3 posting is timely considering this is a popular gift giving time with graduation and wedding season upon us.

The FBI warns consumers of potential fraud particularly in the Secondary Gift Card Market. The Secondary Gift Card Market provides a venue for consumers to resell unwanted gift cards. However, criminal activity has been identified through sites facilitating such exchanges.

Among the popular gift card scams reported to the IC3 are:

  • Victim sells a gift card on an auction site, receives payment for the sale, and sends the PIN associated with the gift card to the buyer, who disputes the charge after using the gift card.
  • Victim purchases an item on an auction site and is advised by the seller to purchase gift cards to pay for the transaction. After purchasing thousands of dollars in gift cards, the victim finds out the auction transaction is a scam.
  • A Secondary Gift Card Market site agrees to pay a victim for a discounted merchant gift card. The victim sends the code on the gift card, and the payment for the transaction was reversed. Thus, the buyer uses the gift card code to purchase an item and stops payment to the seller.

Consumers should beware of social media postings that appear to offer vouchers or gift cards, especially sites offering deals too good to be true, such as a free $500 gift card. Some fraudulent offers may pose as Holiday promotions or contests. The fraudulent postings often look as if a friend shared the link. Oftentimes, these scams lead to online surveys designed to steal personal information. Never provide your personal information to an unknown party or untrustworthy website.

Following the tips below will go a long way to keep consumers safe:

  • Check Secondary Gift Card Market website reviews and only buy from or sell to reputable dealers.
  • Check the gift card balance before and after purchasing the card to verify the correct balance on the card.
  • The re-seller of a gift card is responsible for ensuring the correct balance is on the gift card, not the merchant whose name is on the gift card.
  • When selling a gift card through an online marketplace, do not provide the buyer with the card’s PIN until the transaction is complete. Online purchases can be made using the PIN without having the physical card.
  • When purchasing gift cards online, be leery of auction sites selling gift cards at a discount or in bulk.
  • When purchasing gift cards in a store, examine the protective scratch-off area on the back of the card for any evidence of tampering.

If you believe you have been a victim of a gift card scam, you may file a complaint, providing all relevant information, with the IC3 at www.IC3.gov.

For more on identity theft best practices, please visit www.hvshred.com

Walkway Marathon Goes Green

Posted on by HV Shred

HV Shred President Judith Papo was thrilled to be part of the Walkway Marathon Green Team.  Together with dozens of volunteers we educated thousands of attendees on what is composted vs recycled vs just plain trash.  The crowd was not just receptive but also enthusiastic about their opportunity to run among the most scenic races in the country as well as be part of what we expect to be the first ever Green Marathon in NY State.  A big thank you to all who participated.  We will have the data in the near future.

HV Shred is proud to be part of efforts to help our local and global community increase sustainable practices.  For more on recycling as well as secured data disposal, please visit www.hvshred.com

Save money, space, and limit liability with on-site shredding service

Posted on by HV Shred

Memorial Day is on the horizon and that means another tax season is becoming a distant memory.  It also means it’s time to think about how many old tax records you have in storage and consider maybe turning it over for proper destruction. Maintaining records includes knowing what to keep and what to dispose.  We recommend referencing your industry organizations for guidance.  Streamlining storage is a matter of saving space, saving money, as well as limiting liability.

When you think about how much square footage you’re dedicating to housing old records, does it make you wonder why that space isn’t being used for something more valuable to your company? Are you using off-site storage to contain your old tax records? While the latter situation is great for storage facilities and their bottom line, you’re actually wasting money holding onto boxes that you’re not likely even looking at, let alone touching or removing. Why shell out hundreds of dollars per month for something that you can legally destroy and eliminate for good?

It’s also good practice to clean out old records for the sake of confidentiality. Confidential documents contain information such as account numbers and account details, social security numbers or birth dates of employees, bank records, canceled checks, and more. Why leave these sensitive documents around and risk a possible security breach?

Shredding these documents is the way to go because it ensures that the documents are destroyed and unusable to possible wrong-doers. This does not mean invest in an office shredder. While some businesses feel it’s good practice to have an in-house shredder for regular use, this is a great example of being penny-wise yet pound-foolish. Among the biggest pitfalls of using an in-house shredder is potential security breaches due to the mishandling of sensitive documentation. Letting employees handle your shredding means you can expose sensitive personnel records and competitive information to individuals that are not meant to see it.

Why run the potential risk when there is professional and secure shredding services like HV Shred to do it for you? Outsourcing to companies like  HV Shred means document destruction happens very quickly with little, if any handling by the shredding service’s screened professionals.

It’s time to take inventory of your old tax records and see how you can not only save on space, but ditch the storage unit so that money stays on your bottom line.

Please visit hvshred.com to learn how easy we can make the whole process!

Time to Reset Passwords

Posted on by HV Shred

Frequenters of the HV Shred Blog know that a favorite source for our blog is the OnGuard Online Blog posted by the Federal Trade Commission–the government agency charged with protecting consumers.

A recent post by Consumer Education Specialist Aditi Jhaveri indicated last Thursday was Password Day!

Some good reasons to update passwords regularly:

Updating your passwords can help prevent:

 

We’re not just talking about changing the password for your email account. Consider updating passwords for other important accounts, too — like your bank, credit card, utility, and social media accounts. If you use a password manager, select a unique, strong password for it, too.

Jhaveri also shared some tips for creating strong passwords:

  • Use a different password for each account. That way, if it gets stolen — either from you or one of the sites where you use it — someone won’t be able to take over all of your accounts.
  • Get creative. Mix letters, numbers, and special characters. Never use your name or birthdate.
  • Use 12 characters if you can, but no less than 10. The longer the password, the tougher it is to crack.

 

For more on best practices in the realm of identity theft protection, please visit www.hvshred.com

Reminder of Best Practices to Protect Personal Information

Posted on by HV Shred

A valuable resource we have found is the The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). It is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center Internet Crime Complaint

A recent posting focused on Defending Against Hacktivism:

While eliminating your exposure in the current digital age is nearly impossible, law enforcement and public officials can take steps to minimize their risk in the event they are targeted.

(1) Turn on all privacy settings on social media sites and refrain from posting pictures showing your affiliation to law enforcement.
(2) Be aware of your security settings on your home computers and wireless networks.
(3) Limit your personal postings on media sites and carefully consider comments.
(4) Restrict your driver license and vehicle registration information with the Department of Motor Vehicles.
(5) Request real estate and personal property records be restricted from online searches with your specific county.
(6) Routinely update hardware and software applications, including antivirus.
(7) Pay close attention to all work and personal emails, especially those containing attachments or links to other Web sites. These suspicious or phishing emails may contain infected attachments or links.
(8) Routinely conduct online searches of your name to identify what public information is already available.
(9) Enable additional email security measures to include two factor authentication on your personal email accounts. This is a security feature offered by many email providers. The feature will cause a text message to be sent to your mobile device prior to accessing your email account.
(10) Closely monitor your credit and banking activity for fraudulent activity.
(11) Passwords should be changed regularly–and make them strong by combining letters, numbers, and symbols
(12) Be aware of pretext or suspicious phone calls or emails from people phishing for information or pretending to know you. Social engineering is a skill often used to trick you into divulging confidential information and continues to be an extremely effective method for criminals.
(13) It’s a group effort! Advise family members to turn on security settings on ALL social media accounts. Family member associations are public information and family members can become online targets of opportunity.

It’s a lot to do in some ways–but worth the effort.

For more on best practices with personal information protection, please visit www.hvshred.com

Earth Day 2015

Posted on by HV Shred

Earth Day 2015 is officially Wednesday, April 22nd.

We are happy to report that HV Shred in on a record recycling pace in 2015. To date, we have shred and recycled enough paper to protect nearly 5000 trees and nearly 900 cubic yards of landfill.

To celebrate Earth Month, our shred event season began April 10th and continues until the weather turns again in the Fall. This week’s events are at the Beacon HVFCU 2pm-5pm; Saturday as part of the Monroe Clean Sweep; and Gardiner as part of their town clean-up day.

This week, please give extra consideration to all the things you can do to help reduce, reuse, and recycle the precious resources of our Earth.

For more on recycling and especially identity theft best practices, please visit www.hvshred.com

Good news and the call for continued vigilance

Posted on by HV Shred

Today’s blog is some “kind of” good news in the world of Identity Theft— according to a study released recently by Javelin Strategy & Research, despite a series of large-scale data breaches over the past two years, identity theft fell for the second consecutive year in a row in the U.S. Roughly 12.7 million Americans were hit with identity fraud in 2014, a 3% drop from a year earlier, while losses tied to that fraud fell 11% to $16 billion.

The crime itself is still rampant; the difference is as individuals and society as a whole are more aware of the issue and taking precautions to a greater degree. Banks and others are getting better at protecting customers’ data in the wake of breaches.

The decrease was attributable in part to the Target breach in 2013. After it occurred, 95% of affected cards were replaced.
Because the Target breach was so high-profile, banks went on the offensive, and the value of the stolen cards on the black market plummeted.

The measures taken by the government to increase awareness and culpability in the business community are working. Every state attorney general has the power to fine businesses that were breached and require businesses to provide identity protection to victims.

It’s only a drop in the bucket though. Identity theft continues to be a huge problem and a huge threat.

In a recent report, The Federal Trade Commission said identity fraud is the number-one type of consumer complaint it receives. Out of more than 2.5 million total complaints filed with the FTC in 2014, 332,000 (13%) were related to identity theft. The previous year, 2.2 million complaints were filed and 13% were of identity fraud. (The FTC’s data also show a sharp uptick in impostor scams, particularly those related to tax identity fraud.)

The bottom line is education and awareness remain key—as well as continued vigilance by individuals and businesses.

For more on best practices to prevent identity theft, please visit www.hvhsred.com