Only a handful of people showed up for Mike D'Sa’s fraud prevention seminar last week at the Southdale Community Centre. The security specialist for Visa was hoping more people had shown up, especially older adults, since they're often targets of scams.
"About 1/5th admitted to being victimized by either identity theft, credit card fraud, or some violation against their private financial information,” says D’Sa.
Visa recently surveyed 1,000 Canadians 50 years and older. It found some startling stats when it came to this age group and how it handles personal information. 22 percent of people surveyed admitting to sharing their personal identification number (PIN) at one time and 18 percent had lent out their credit or debit card to a family member or friend. That kind of risky behaviour makes them vulnerable to identity theft and fraud, according to D’Sa. "It's a false trust. There are caregivers who will take advantage of that there are even family members who will take advantage of that."
Winnipeg Police say the amount of older adults and seniors who are scammed out of cash may be even higher than the 16 percent the Visa survey found. Detective Julius Kovacs says, "that's probably low."
Low, because people are often embarrassed to report a fraud.
Things like keeping a copy of your pin number in your wallet or purse or not covering up PINs at ATMs are easy ways to lose the privacy of your information. Security experts say to pick PINs easy for you to remember but hard for criminals to crack.
Mike D’Sa suggests using your first child's birthday, your anniversary date or some special milestone.
He says a lot of people who have been victims of identity theft have told him they thought putting their information in a recycling bin would be safe.
But D’Sa says people should destroy their documents first with a cross cut shredder-- to keep criminals out of their lives and their bank accounts.
