Consumer

ATM fees are getting out of control. Whenever customers use ATM machines outside their bank network, they often pay exorbitant fees. Bloomberg reported:

This year marks the 11th consecutive annual increase in bank ATM fees for customers using out-of-network machines, according to a new Bankrate.com report. Over the past decade, such fees have risen 55 percent. The average cost of such a transaction is now over $4.50.

ATM fees aren’t rising due to overwhelming demand. In fact, it’s the opposite. “It keeps getting easier to avoid the fees, and people are transitioning away from cash,” said Greg McBride, Bankrate.com’s chief financial analyst. “With fewer people making out-of-network ATM withdrawals, the cost of maintaining that network is being spread over fewer transactions.”

The average overdraft fee reached a new high of $33.38, up from $33.04 in 2016… The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau zeroed in on overdraft fees in a recent report. Consumers who pay a lot in overdraft fees “tend to be more credit-constrained,” to have lower credit scores and be less likely to have a general purpose credit card, it found. That means overdraft fees can weigh heavily on already fragile finances.

Following the Equifax hack, Credit Karma to launch free ID monitor, a new free service that will alert customers if their identity data has been compromised in hacks. The San Francisco-based fintech company said the new ID monitoring service is being tested and will be available in October in the wake of massive breach at credit monitoring agency Equifax.

CreditKarma saw a 50 percent spike in sign-ups to its platform in the weekend after the hack. From a report:

“Similar to services offered by Symantec-owned (SYMC.O) LifeLock Inc, CreditKarma will keep track of data breaches and tell customers if they are one of the victims. Customers can then check to use the company’s credit monitoring services and flag suspicious activities. The company said it was accelerating the launch of the new service in response to the large data breach at Equifax, where thieves may have stolen personal information of 143 million Americans.”

By now you have probably heard that personal information for 143 million people was compromised at Equifax, one of the largest credit reporting agencies in the United States. The compromised information included individual names, addresses, birth dates and Social Security numbers.

Rick Smith, Chairman and CEO of Equifax Inc., explains in details on the worst cybersecurity incident that exposes consumer information below.

Here are 10 ways you should be taking to protect yourself after the worst leak of personal info ever by Equifax.

1. Check if your information may have been compromised. You can visit www.equifaxsecurity2017.com to determine if your information may have been compromised.

2. Sign up for account alerts with your banks and review your bank statements and credit card activities. Be vigilant to monitor your financial health. Watch for unexpected medical bills or other purchases you didn’t make.

3. Review your credit bureau records. By law, you can access your credit reports once every 12 months at annualcreditreport.com. Based on the Equifax breach, it is a good idea to check your credit report soon to verify there is no suspicious activity. Be careful for scam sites offering free credit reports by signing up for a service. Check your postal mail and email for signs of suspicious credit activity and fraudulent charges on existing accounts. Fraud is your near-term risk as criminals may try create credit in your name or use stolen credit card information.

4. Be aware of scammers. After cybersecurity incidents, fraudsters often use phishing and other scams to impersonate legitimate companies or organizations in an attempt to lure consumers into revealing confidential information. Guard against phishing and other types of social engineering attempts – If the information about you has been stolen from Equifax files, it may be enough to craft fake emails, texts or phone calls against you. Criminals may impersonate your bank, PayPal or even Equifax itself to convince you to click on a link, open an attachment or give sensitive information over the phone. While very convincing, these attempts may download malware or steal login credentials. Never login to a website through a link or open attachments you weren’t expecting — and never give out your login (e.g., passwords, passcodes, PIN) over the phone. Instead, go to the website of your financial institution and login. Also, find more information about recent scam alerts directly from the US Federal Trade Commission.

5. Change your login credentials for credit-related accounts that could be compromised – The Equifax breach is serious enough that it may put other accounts at risk. At a minimum, reset the passwords, passcodes, PINs and security questions for Equifax and other credit agency accounts (Experian, Transunion) that you have. Consider whether credit card information on file with Equifax may be at risk. It is critical to ensure every login is unique for each account, create answers to security (challenge) questions that are not easy to guess and that your account PIN is not based on a known number sequence (e.g., child birthday, your birthday, house number, postal code). Guessed PIN codes often allow criminals to change your account security information.

6. Use 2-factor authentication (2FA) for every account where it is available – While not perfect, 2FA provides an extra layer of security by requiring that you enter a separate security code sent to your phone or email when you login. There are other methods for 2FA that institutions may employ. 2FA is becoming more widely available, so check with your bank and other institutions to enable it. You should always use 2FA for personal email, changes to login credentials and high-value/sensitive accounts.

7. Consider credit monitoring. Do your research and consider which credit monitoring service might be right for you. As a result of the Equifax breach, Equifax is offering a full year of credit monitoring to every US consumer at-no-cost. There may be risks to your consumer rights with this offer, so do your research here as there may be a legal catch to this “FREE” offer.

8. Request a Credit Freeze to your credit profile – Each of the main credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, Transunion) offer the ability to “freeze” your credit for a fee. Once frozen, no one can add credit in your name or pull your credit information until you stop the freeze. If you don’t have plans to take out new credit (buy a home, a car or open a new credit account) consider the freeze option.

9. Monitor the credit profile of your children – Regardless of their age, if you have children, their credit profile is at risk. With a Social Security Number (SSN), a date of birth and simple personal information, a criminal can open credit in the name of your kids. It is increasingly common for young adults to check their credit, only to find they have been the victims of financial fraud and identity theft for years. As a parent, you can protect your children by checking their credit report, establish credit monitoring or put a credit freeze on their credit profile. In the wake of the Equifax breach, their risk has increased.

10. Stay informed and think big picture. The Equifax breach feels urgent today and is grabbing big headlines, but as the news and attention fades, cybercriminals will continue to sell our information and exploit our credit profiles. They will be leveraging stolen information for years to come and we can’t let our guard down. The best defense against becoming a victim is to stay informed about these cyber events, employ best practices and security technologies as they become available. In the big picture, everything is becoming ever more digitally interconnected, from your email and social media to the personal and financial information of you and your family.

Credit reporting firm Equifax says data breach could potentially affect 143 million US consumers. The Equifax breach is vert possibly the most severe leak of personal info ever for a simple reason: the breath-taking amount of highly sensitive data it handed over to criminals.

Personal data including birth dates, credit card numbers and more were obtained in the breach. Equifax, which supplies credit information and other information services, said Thursday that a cybersecurity incident discovered on July 29 could have potentially affected 143 million consumers in the U.S. “The leaked data includes names, birth dates, social security numbers, addresses and potentially drivers licenses,” reports CNBC. “209,000 U.S. credit card numbers were also obtained, in addition to ‘certain dispute documents with personal identifying information for approximately 182,000 U.S. consumers.”

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Richard F. Smith said in a statement: “This is clearly a disappointing event for our company, and one that strikes at the heart of who we are and what we do. I apologize to consumers and our business customers for the concern and frustration this causes. We pride ourselves on being a leader in managing and protecting data, and we are conducting a thorough review of our overall security operations. We also are focused on consumer protection and have developed a comprehensive portfolio of services to support all U.S. consumers, regardless of whether they were impacted by this incident.” Equifax is now alerting customers whose information was included in the breach via mail, and is working with state and federal authorities.

Dan Goodin of ArsTechnica writes: “By providing full names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, and, in some cases, driver license numbers, it provided most of the information banks, insurance companies, and other businesses use to confirm consumers are who they claim to be. The theft, by criminals who exploited a security flaw on the Equifax website, opens the troubling prospect the data is now in the hands of hostile governments, criminal gangs, or both and will remain so indefinitely. Hacks hitting Yahoo and other sites, by contrast, may have breached more accounts, but the severity of the personal data was generally more limited. And in most cases the damage could be contained by changing a password or getting a new credit card number. What’s more, the 143 million US people Equifax said were potentially affected accounts for roughly 44 percent of the population. When children and people without credit histories are removed, the proportion becomes even bigger. That means well more than half of all US residents who rely the most on bank loans and credit cards are now at a significantly higher risk of fraud and will remain so for years to come. Besides being used to take out loans in other people’s names, the data could be abused by hostile governments to, say, tease out new information about people with security clearances, especially in light of the 2015 hack on the US Office of Personnel Management, which exposed highly sensitive data on 3.2 million federal employees, both current and retired.”

What to do if you’re a victim of the Equifax hack

1. Request your free credit reports:

Under federal law you are allowed to request a free copy of your credit report once a year from each of the three credit reporting agencies: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. To request a copy of your credit report online, go to www.annualcreditreport.com.

2. Put a fraud alert on your credit:

You can put a fraud alert on your credit reports for free by contacting one of the credit agencies, which is required to notify the other two.

3. Monitor your bank accounts and credit card statements:

Go through all your bank, retirement, and brokerage accounts, as well as your credit card statements to look for any suspicious activity.

4. Sign up for a credit monitoring or identity theft protection service:

Monitoring services usually alert you when a company checks your credit history, a new loan or credit card is opened in your name, a creditor says a payment is late, or if public records show you’ve filed for bankruptcy.

5. Put a freeze on your credit:

This is an extreme step if your personal information is compromised or stolen.

As most consumers prefer reward credit cards that give money back, PayPal plans to roll out credit card with 2% cash rebate to compete as the best cash back card on the market. Bloomberg reported:

“The online payments venture is introducing a credit card that offers customers 2 percent cash back on purchases — one of the industry’s highest rebate rates — with no annual fee. The rewards will appear in users’ online wallets and can be spent immediately on additional PayPal purchases or transferred to a bank.”

“The move is part of Chief Executive Officer Dan Schulman’s effort to transform PayPal from a payments button on websites into a versatile financial tool for everyday use, even in brick-and-mortar stores. He’s forged 24 deals over the past 18 months with technology and financial companies including Apple Inc., Visa Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., looking to make PayPal ubiquitous in the lives of its 210 million customers. The company already tested the card with some of them.”

Currently on the market, you can get 2% cash back credit card from Fidelity Rewards Visa and Citi Double Cash. Now PayPal’s credit card will be another option for consumers to use in brick-and-mortar stores.