Someone falls victim to fraud every 12 seconds in the UK and it is one of the fastest growing crimes. Identity theft is one of the top types of fraud, with 24% of UK citizens having been a victim to this. Fraud is awful with the obvious reprocussion being loss of money but it is also really stressful for the victim and their friends/family, it takes up a lot of time to resolve everything and the emotional harm and upset that it causes.
It is so important to keep your confidential data safe so here are some of our top tips:
1) Be careful who you share your confidential information with.
It’s important that you don’t share your personal information with people who you do not trust and ensure that you don’t leave passwords/personal information left lying round at work or your home that people can see.
2) Have secure passwords
We know it is so frustrating to try and remember a different log in and password for every website but it is so important to have different passwords for different websites/log in’s. You also must ensure that you do not use easy to guess passwords – 123456 is not a secure password!
There are many different password management apps/sites that can create highly secure passwords for you and store different log in’s securely so you don’t have to remember them all.
3) Don’t give out information to anyone on the phone
We know this is an obvious one however scammers are so clever now and their calls sound professional and knowledgable which leads to more people falling victim to fraud. Even if it is your bank you use, your insurance agency, your workplace, your gym etc, if they are asking for personal information and they have phone you, you hang up and phone them back on the phone number on their website (not the number they give you as this is still the potential scammers number)!
4) Ensure that you shred all confidential paperwork, memory sticks and hard drives.
Paper, memory sticks and hard drives hold so much personal information about you, your family, your friends, your customers, your work and more so it is so important to ensure they are securely shredded and destroyed. Using a shredding services saves you the time of shredding your self as well and our shredding service is based in Wirral/Cheshire if you want to wait whilst your items are shredded so you have peace of mind. (Just book an appointment to wait whilst your items are shredded).
With 92% of the UK population trying to protect themselves from fraud but only 53% consistenly shredding, there is a lot of confidential information out there that could fall into the wrong hands.
Remember if you are concerned about something, check it out or report it as it may be important to do so. You can check out action fraud’s website, click here, where they have a lot of information on reporting fraud and how to stay safe.
For any help keeping your data safe through secure shredding in Wirral, Merseyside, Cheshire and North Wales, contact our helpful team today for more information!