Know your bank’s communication policies

Being familiar with your bank’s communication policies will decrease the probability of your personal financial information being stolen by identity thieves. Even if you don’t have the time to find out the specifics of the communication policies of each bank that you do business with, you can apply the following general rules to most banks.

Most banks will NOT:

• Call or email you requesting “account verification”
• Call or email you asking for your password
• Refer to you with a generic term such as “Customer”

If you are ever in doubt about a phone call or email that you receive, stop what you are doing and contact the company in question at a customer service number that you received when your account was created. You can also go directly to the company site by typing it in (do not follow links in questionable emails) and log into your account.