Identity theft occurs when someone uses your personal identifiable information to commit fraudulent acts such as withdrawing money from your bank account, opening new credit cards, applying for loans, or even employment.
General Anti-Fraud Best Practices
We recommend that you take an active role in reducing fraud by following these minimum best practices:
- Avoid phishing attacks – Do not follow links from sources you don’t trust, including emails, texts and social media posts. Malicious links could direct you to websites or install applications that compromise your information (more information is provided on phishing below).
- Monitor your accounts – Monitor your sensitive accounts on a regular basis to detect suspicious or fraudulent activity.
- Monitor your credit – Review your credit report frequently and carefully by requesting a free copy of your credit report every 12 months from annualcreditreport.com.
- Report suspicious activity – Report suspicious activities and/or forward suspicious emails to abuse@liveoak.bank.
Common Signs of Identity Theft
- Failing to receive bills or other mail
- Receiving suspicious charges on your accounts
- Receiving credit cards that you didn’t apply for
- Being denied credit unexpectedly
- Getting information about services you didn’t buy and
- The IRS notifying you that more than one tax return was filed in your name, or that you have income from an employer you don’t work for
Phishing – Email/Text Scamming
Today, a common method to conduct fraud is called phishing. Phishing is a scam where a fraudster sends an authentic looking email or text which appears to come from a legitimate person or company. The intention is to phish (pronounced “fish”) for personal and financial information. These phishing emails direct recipients to click on links that redirect them to fraudulent websites. These sites are designed to fool customers into believing that they are actually visiting a legitimate company website. Once on the fraudulent site, the email recipient is asked to enter personal and/or financial information that is later used to commit fraud.
Live Oak Bank will never send emails asking a customer for personal information, user IDs, passwords or PIN numbers from the authentication device.
How to Avoid Phishing Scams
- While online banking is very safe, as a general rule you should be careful about giving out your personal financial information over the Internet.
- Be suspicious of any email with urgent requests for personal financial information. Phishing emails typically include direct and urgent statements to get you to react immediately, and ask for information such as IDs and passwords.
- Avoid emails that are NOT personalized – you can call to check if you are unsure of an email’s validity.
- Do not follow links in an email to get to any web page. If you suspect the message might not be authentic or you don’t know the sender, call or log onto the website directly by typing in the web address in your browser.
- Make it a habit to enter the address of any banking, shopping, auction or financial transaction website yourself and not to depend on displayed links.
