Give importance to your coins. They might be small in amount but small becomes big if you save. So, keep your loose change in a separate coin compartment in your wallet or in a small coin purse. Don’t neglect using your coins in paying. If you feel like that fishing out coins dampens your style, keep them in your bag or stash them daily in a piggy bank and deposit them in the bank when you have the time. You will be surprise to find that your small change can go a long way. The next thing you know your coins can buy you a pair of jewelry.

To cut mailing costs, some banks are encouraging cardholders to receive their monthly account statements via e-mail. But while it’s tempting to take the paperless plunge it may pay to be old-fashioned.

You may confuse your legitimate online statements with a bogus e-mails sent out by the online scammers known as phishers. They are those who design e-mails to look like official business from banks and other institutions. They are hoping that you will reply and give them your financial information. Then scammers would set up fraudulent accounts, or worse, steal your identity. Anyone can fall victim to a scammer, but receiving credit card statement through e-mails increases your chances. Not only that, e-mail statements can create problems too. Sometimes spam filters will mistaken bank messages for junk and discard them. You could lose track of payment dues and end up paying late fees. When it comes to certain paperwork, stick to paper.

Phishing involves an email message being sent out to as many Internet email addresses that the fraudster can obtain, claiming to come from a legitimate organisation such as a bank, online payment service, online retailer or similar. The email requests the recipient to update or to verify their personal and financial information. Some of the email messages include a threat that failure to update or validate will result in, for example, the account being frozen. The objective is to induce unsuspecting recipients to respond to the email and to provide the information being requested.

The email will contain a link that takes you to a spoof web site that looks identical, or at least very similar, to the organisation’s genuine site. In some cases, when the link in the email is clicked, the genuine site is accessed, but is overlaid with a smaller window with the spoof site, making it more believable. Clicking on a link may also download malicious software, known as “spyware” onto your PC which will record your use of the Internet and forward this information, and possibly a log of your keystrokes, to the fraudster. The fraudsters will use this financial information to compromise bank accounts, credit cards, etc.

Let us work together to combat and keep ourselves protected from these fraud attacks