Published By Countrywide Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc.
Look for the Lock Icon
The holiday shopping season does not end on Christmas Eve. The after Christmas sales start almost immediately and can last till New Year’s Day. Many people avoid the crowds by shopping online. It’s convenient but it is also dangerous. Identity theft can happen on the Internet and there are group legal plan benefits to help prevent damage. Here are some primary ways to avoid having your financial information stolen.
- Use the Credit Cards. Plastic is safer than cash in most instances, but certain types of plastic are an invitation for trouble. If a thief gets a hold of your debit card information, it is an open invitation to rob your checking and savings accounts. You will not know what has happened until you receive the monthly bank statement. A group legal services benefit that is extremely helpful are reports from credit monitoring bureaus. They will let you know as soon as possible if there’s a sudden increase in the use of your credit cards.
- Use Passwords That Are Strong. When you sign up for a credit card online, you are asked to create a password. Ordinarily, the best password should be 6 to 8 characters, include numbers, and have capital letters. You’ll note that the credit card company will tell you how strong your password is; the stronger the better. It is also an excellent idea to change the password periodically. If you are given a reminder by the credit card company, go ahead and make the change.
- The Lock Icon. If you should see a small lock icon next to the address of a given retail site, it means the connection to that particular platform is encrypted. It is much safer than one which is not. You are smart to do shopping only on those websites that have encryption protection.
- Beware of the Phish. Most people know that getting an email from a bank in Ghana is an invitation to problems. However, these scams have gotten little bit more sophisticated. They will send an email that looks like it came from the department store that issues the credit card. These bogus inquiries will ask for personal information. Large retail companies and financial institutions will not ask for personal data by means of an email. In other words, it’s a trap. Do not fall into it!
Credit Monitoring Is a Great Group Legal Plan Benefit
If personal information is stolen by a hacker, the best remedy is quick action. Credit monitoring and protection from ID theft can be of great assistance. Some of the group legal services of such benefits may include not just credit reports, but also identity theft insurance and email alerts. A person is better able to respond quickly, and stop the problem from getting worse.
Countrywide Pre-Paid Legal Services has identity theft/credit monitoring plans. These provide the kind of help a person needs to safeguard personal information on the Internet. The Platinum ID Protector Plan and the Premier ID Protector Plan includes credit reports from the three major credit bureaus (Experian™, Equifax™, and TransUnion™), identity theft insurance, and email alerts. As with any group legal plan benefit offered by Countrywide, administration is efficient and response is quick. We consider empathy to be an extremely important part of the group legal services we offer. Anyone who is a plan member can expect to have their problems addressed as soon as possible.
We have developed group legal plan benefits for organizations since 1987, and we have a reputation for providing excellent service. If you are human resources director or CEO of a company, you may be thinking of adding on to your benefits plans. Our identity theft/credit monitoring benefit is one that employees greatly appreciate. Countrywide also has a number of group legal services you may want to consider, and we encourage you to contact us for any information.