Protect Yourself!
A three part Bauer E-News series on ways to manage and protect your private information.

 In this week’s Bauer Mortgage E-news we begin part one of a three-part series designed to educate consumers on ways to protect their private information. We’ll begin the series by addressing consumer e-Fraud, next week discussing the outcomes of the Patriot Act on the mortgage industry. Finally, we will close our series by presenting a number of tips on how to protect yourself with (and from) technology. Our goal is to increase your knowledge about the flow of private information so that you can get a better understanding of how we do business. From there, you can understand how we manage your sensitive information, thus providing you the tools to make well-educated decisions regarding your private information.

          The research in this series was inspired by a fraudulent email scheme where an unsavory party was posing as the FDIC to collect personal information under the guise of new provisions in the Patriot Act. In the spirit of keeping our customers informed, I sent a warning to a number of you to inform you of the potential danger and to keep your eyes on your inbox for any out of the ordinary emails.  

After a bit of investigation on our part, we managed to uncover the content of the email and the modus operandi behind the scam. The content of the email is as follows, followed by a breakdown of the logic behind it:

Nasty stuff, no? However, most of us are keen to the dangers of email viruses and solicitations, but the fact that we are generally told only to avoid attachments (as opposed to standard links) adds an interesting new twist. At first glance, it almost seems legit - there is in fact a link to the FDIC’s website (or so it seems). The surprising danger here was that the link inside the email redirected consumers to a computer far outside the FDIC’s website, and may have even visually appeared to look like an FDIC site. Here, the site likely asked for personal information where (if entered) was immediately transferred to the dastardly party’s databases to be used for unsavory purposes - like identity theft. The site is now down and the process halted, but the damage may have already been done to a select few who were caught unaware – let’s hope none of you were victims!

          To help you in the future, here are some precautions to consider when you receive questionable content in your Inbox from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s website:

·         If you get an email that warns you, with little or no notice, that an account of yours will be shut down unless you reconfirm your billing information, do not reply or click on the link in the email. Instead, contact the company cited in the email using a telephone number or Web site address you know to be genuine.

·         Avoid emailing personal and financial information. Before submitting financial information through a Web site, look for the "lock" icon on the browser's status bar. It signals that your information is secure during transmission.

·         Review credit card and bank account statements as soon as you receive them to determine whether there are any unauthorized charges. If your statement is late by more than a couple of days, call your credit card company or bank to confirm your billing address and account balances.

·         Report suspicious activity to the FTC. Send the actual spam to uce@ftc.gov. If you believe you've been scammed, file your complaint at www.ftc.gov, and then visit the FTC's Identity Theft Web site (www.ftc.gov/idtheft) to learn how to minimize your risk of damage from identity theft.

This really got us at Bauer Mortgage to think about how we can improve the safety and security of our customer’s information. We feel that the best service we can provide is to inform our customers on how to deal with their sensitive information online – or off. Of course, a large portion of the mortgage process is to obtain and manage sensitive information such as driver’s license numbers and social security numbers, but we make it a point to put a name with a face, we’re so much more than a website. You know us, and can trust us – in fact - you can even come and see us in action. Additionally, more and more government measures are being implemented, especially since the incidents of September 11^th, which have increased the amount of information we need to obtain. The Patriot Act is one such measure, and will be the topic of next week’s E-news – so stay tuned!

 Email us to learn more.

Seacoast Bauer Mortgage Group
(603) 430-7729
Toll free: (888) 252-2837 
Fax: (603) 430-0008
170 State Street, Portsmouth, NH 03801

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