September 8, 2017 by lpalma
As you may have read in the news, Equifax was the target of a recent cybersecurity breach. You may be wondering what you can do to protect your personal information. Blackhawk is committed to helping you. Equifax has set up a website for you to check whether your data was stolen at www.equifaxsecurity2017.com and to enroll in their free identity protection. We have not received notification that any Blackhawk debit and credit cards were involved. If that should change, we will take immediate steps to contact you and issue you new cards. Be assured that your Blackhawk debit and credit cards are protected and you are never responsible for fraudulent charges.
Here are some additional actions you can take:
- Place a password on your Blackhawk account that only you know. Give us a call at 800.779.5555 to add one today.
- Monitor your account statements closely for any unauthorized transactions and report any suspicious activity immediately.
- Set up an email or text alert in Online Banking under the Services tab in order to receive an automatic notification for high dollar amount transactions.
- Review your credit report regularly. Federal law requires each of the three major credit reporting services, Experian, Equifax and
- Trans Union, to provide one free copy of your credit report every 12 months. When the report arrives, check it carefully for errors or suspicious activity.
During significant events such as this, it is common for additional scams to emerge that take advantage of the hype generated by the media. Often there is an increase in targeted phishing (email), vishing (voice) and smishing (text) attacks in which fraudsters target a broad audience, telling each recipient that their account has been compromised. Here are some tips to avoid scams:
- Don’t readily share personal information, such as social security number, passwords, user IDs and financial account information, over the phone, email or text with anyone even if they claim to be someone you know or do business with. Ask for a callback number.
- Immediately delete texts from numbers or people you don’t recognize.
Be wary of mass emails asking for money or that send you to suspicious websites. Don’t click links within emails you don’t recognize.
If you have any questions, please contact us at 800.779.5555. We’re here to help.
