Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Past little while I have been ranting about the poor service I get from the Toronto Dominion bank and their various parts, but if I feel it is my right to write that kind of article, I must also point out when they do an excellent job as well.

Victim of Debit Card Fraud

Yup, Mrs. Big Cajun Man’s debit card was compromised some time in the past 3 months, and on Tuesday my bank account was almost cleaned out before the TD security tap turned off the fraudulent withdrawals.

How did this happen? I have no idea, because my wife has her debit card (which is now void and unusable) still in her wallet, so my guess is she was a victim of one of the many “bogus debit machine” frauds that have been happening lately. My limited understanding is that the machine or the connection to the machine is compromised in some way, so that the ID number from the debit card and the PIN number can be taken, and then this information is used to create a fraudulent version of the card complete with PIN, which the criminals then use at debit machines to remove money from the unsuspecting folks bank accounts.

The TD security bureau called my wife to ask if she was in fact in Montreal, taking money out at an alarming rate? Since my wife answered the phone, the answer was “No”, and thus the TD security group leaped into action and has shut off the access point and has referred this to the authorities for their action.

This does leave me with a massive whole in my finances, as the culprits got the money out before they could be stopped, and TD will only reimburse me (once it is proven to be a fraud) in 7-10 business days, so I am now living on my credit until I get my money back.

This disturbs me, because I kept thinking this only happened when you weren’t diligent with your card security, but I know my wife is diligent and this still happened, so now I am going to have to rethink security for my finances, because if this can happen once, it can easily happen again.

Financial Security Measures

A few ideas have come to mind, however, any other ideas from my intelligent and diligent readers would be appreciated as well:

1. Make sure that only necessary accounts are available from my bank card.
2. Set up daily limits on withdrawals which is much lower so when this happens again (and it will) the damage will not be as bad.
3. Be more diligent watching my bank balances on line
4. Be more diligent with my on line banking passwords as well.
5. Use CASH more often! That was a suggestion from Michael James on Money as well.

Thanks Toronto Dominion, good job catching this and hopefully good job refunding me the defrauded funds.

I would ask, “What else could go wrong?”, but I have asked that question once too often and, far too often, I found out the answer is, “Much more and worse things!”.

Security of your financial information is essential, for many reasons. Identity theft is the main issue, in that if someone can get enough information to re-create your identity in some fashion and get credit cards (or worse) in your name, it will create huge issues for you.

Fraud is rampant in our society, and you must be diligent to ensure you are not a victim of this crime.

Paper Security?

The Shredder , as we spoke about on Tuesday is your security weapon for your printed records. Any old financial records must be destroyed (after they are no longer needed, please don’t just destroy records without knowing whether you need them any more), or stored in a safe place until they are no longer needed. The safest place I can think of for saving important financial documents would be either a Safety Deposit Box or a home safe (or strong box). This will secure your printed information.

What kind of information?

1. Old Tax Forms, with receipts and associated responses from the government
2. An inventory of your house with it’s estimated value (don’t store that in the house)
3. Wills
4. Birth certificates and such
5. Receipts from Credit Cards, Property Tax Payments, and such (I think the rule of thumb is at least 3 years of that data).

Computer Security

Damn right you need computer security .

Possible Computer Security Attacks

First whatever computer you are running your Financial Software tools on, must be secured with a password of some kind, that is common sense.

Next if the computer is connected to the Internet (which it most likely is), then it must also have Anti-Virus and Anti-Spy Software, or your data can be corrupted, or worse still your machine can be compromised by:

• Trojan Horse software that simply replaces parts of your system with it’s own versions which will look for information on your computer.
• Key Capture software that will simply steal your on line banking password, by logging all the keystrokes you type on your system and sending them to another computer

Yup, this can happen to you, and you need to protect your finances from this kind of attack. There are many others, I am just highlighting the major ones here (there are many, many more attacks out there).

Network Security

If someone can break into your home network, they can get onto your home computers and steal information directly from your system. There are some easy fixes to stop this (or at least slow it down).

If you have a home network and have a home router, please change the password on the router from the factory default and turn off remote administration! You may as well leave your front door open if you have this turned on, and I can’t tell you how many configurations I have run into that are set up this way.

Linksys, has changed their default configuration to FORCE people to change the default password, but on older routers, this is not the case. If you have a router and don’t know what I am talking about, you need to get someone in to set up your network security.

If you have a wireless home network, TURN ON WAP or some other wireless security, and turn off SSID broadcast. Look up War Driving and see what can happen to unsecured wireless home network configurations.

I had an old router who’s security was compromised, and I ended up selling Herbal Viagra for a while (I didn’t make any money on the deal, and I had my Internet access turned off for a week, and only got it back because I plead stupidity about how I had not configured security on my system).

Again, I am only highlighting a few areas, if you aren’t sure, consult the Internet or call someone who knows about this kind of stuff, don’t just hope it doesn’t happen to you.

Disposal

Inevitably you will want to dispose of either the backup media you have been using for your computer, or even the computer itself and this is where many people’s identities get stolen (if it can happen to F1 Driver Lewis Hamilton, it can happen to you too).

1. If you have old floppies around the house and you do not know what is on them, run a powerful magnet over them, or destroy them (with a hammer).
2. If you have been doing backups on to CD’s or DVD’s and you do not need these backups any more, destroy the media (my shredder actually chews up CD’s and DVD’s, so that is where they go).
3. If you have tape media, cut it up, burn it, whatever.

This media if just thrown out, is insecure and can easily be used to get information about you (especially if they have been used to back up your financial data).

The one computer point people don’t think of is disposal of your computer. Your computer has a hard drive in it, if you simply throw the computer out, the hard disk has all of that information on it about your finances, and whoever picks up the computer now has this information.

The best thing to do with an old computer is the following, remove the hard drive from the system, and physically destroy it. Either take it apart and smash the platters, go at it with a sledge hammer or something of the like.

If you want to give this computer to someone or donate it, you must find a shop that will WIPE the disk clean or buy software that will do that. This software will overwrite the data on the disks over and over with varying patterns until the only people who might be able to read it is the CIA or CSIS, you can then donate your computer (but I won’t, I will destroy the hard drive by hand, I don’t trust any of this stuff).

Never, ever give a computer away with the hard disk intact, if you have used it for any financial work at all. Even if all you did was order some stuff from E-bay on line, wipe it clean.

Am I Being Paranoid?

You are only paranoid if everyone is not out to get you (hey I am now the Big Paranoid Cajun Man), but seriously, securing your financial data both hard copy and soft copies and the associated software is the most important thing you can do for yourself, and your family.

After posting yesterday’s best of: Free Banking post, I received my monthly balance sheet from the bank for my bank account, and dutifully I went into Quicken and ran my monthly reconcile of my chequing account. At the end of the document from the bank it had this very interesting statement:

You have saved $72.50 in Service Charges this month

I beg your pardon? The statement reflect that if I was paying for the $12.95 a month TD program, that I might not be paying for right now, I have saved $72.50. If I was gouged for $73 in bank service charges for a month, I’d start putting my money in a mattress or carrying it around in my shoe.

Then I started to wonder is there anyone out there who actually pays that much a month to the banks? I really hope that is not the case, as you saw yesterday, I think it’s ridiculous to pay $13 a month, $73 a month would be highway robbery. What services could be worth that much?

• Tellers deliver money directly to my house?
• Bank Manager drops by and helps clean out my garage for the spring?
• FREE MONEY! (two words I love to see)
• Interest payments that amount to more than a single bus ticket in value?

Given none of those services are offered by my branch of TD, my guess is those service charges of $73 are fiction, since no one would pay it, would they?

This is why I invest in banks.

Snow and Flooding

With the snow pack in Ottawa disappearing the flood planes of Ottawa are filling up quickly. My area of Ottawa is less likely to flood, however, I am not that far from the Mighty Jock River so there is a chance yet.

How much does flood insurance cost? What does it cover? Is it better to just invest in a sump pump? I have a good shop vac for small wet spills, but if my basement floods, I would have to run to Canadian Tire to get a real pump!

Is flood insurance worthwhile? Opinions?

From time to time I receive bogus scam e-mails (if from time to time is translated to every hour of my day), and most of the time it is painfully obvious that this is phishing or simply a scam of some kind. Evidently there is another scam going on where letters of collection are sent to folks demanding payment, which is outlined here by our friends at Canadian Money Advisor. This kind of stuff is vile and pathetic behavior, by the vermin of life. Be skeptical about anything like this especially if you don’t remember how this might have happened!

If you make your money preying on others by intimidation and/or trickery and flim-flammery, remember Karma is a nasty thing to fool with. Also remember that no matter how big a Dog you think you are, there is always a bigger Dog looking to kick your ass (translation: Sometimes, you get bit even by your own pet snake).

I used to think this stuff was funny and dismissed it by saying, anyone who fell for this was a sucker, but that’s not the case, mostly.

As ye sew, so shall ye reap my friends, and if you think it’s funny, what does that say about you? What would you think if a loved one was a victim of this crap? Not as funny, eh?

Sorry folks, this is a sensitive subject for me, and I am fighting a wicked hang over, but still, these are my opinions.