Records Storage in Chicago

While Vanguard is the place to go for Records storage Chicago, providing physical security for archives and backup data tapes, preventing data breach in your personal life is really up to you. Unfortunately it isn’t an easy thing to combat. There is no blinking light on your computer to warn you that your information, address, credit card number, or email has been taken without your knowledge or authorization. There is no immediate recognition that a crime is in progress. Modern credit scammers are keeping traditional credit card fraud alive even while they implement new sophisticated methods of using your name, your card, your number to enrich their own accounts. However, by understanding the most common types of fraud and the warning signs they generate, your chances of escaping these traps only increases.

Traditional credit card fraud techniques include application fraud, in which the scammer either fills out a credit card application with someone else’s information (identity fraud) or submits false information about themselves (financial fraud). Financial fraud is often committed by regular people who are just desperate to get a little more credit for their situation, not dedicated con artists. After all, they are entering their own name and they are the ones planning on paying the bill every month. Identity fraud, however, pins the blame on someone else (and their good name) and also typically violates postal laws as the scammer (who is typically local unless they manipulate addresses somehow) needs to steal the card from the victims mail. This con is typically short lived, however, as the first bill will immediately raise alarms for the victim.

This is also similar to intercept fraud, wherein the scammer recognizes what a credit card looks like in the mail and manages to intercept a legally applied-for card en-route to its owner. Again this scam only works for a limited time and involves a local criminal.

And, to address the typical run of the mill credit card issues, illegal use of lost or physically stolen cards is the most common type of credit fraud affecting thousands and millions. Always make sure that your card is secure on your person and at the first sign of its loss make sure to cancel the card with the company—making it null and void to any thief who gets their hands on it.