As life gets simpler, protecting your money becomes more complex.
Take person-to-person, or P2P payments, as a prime example. You can pay for merchandise or repay a friend within seconds on your cell phone. It’s a great convenience.
And because it’s so accessible, scammers want a piece of the pie.
According to the FBI, P2P transactions accounted for more than $1 trillion in 2023 and will double by 2026. Yet in 2023, 8 percent of American banking customers reported P2P fraud at an average cost of $176 per transaction.
And these scams go deeper. If they can’t get your money, they want your information.
Protect Yourself From P2P Fraud
Kimberly Reece of the Regions Fraud Strategy Customer Advocacy team points to a few common-sense steps to protect your money and data from criminals:
- Set your settings to private and keep them that way: “If you don’t want people to see when you send money, make sure your account is private,” Reece said. “Otherwise, other people can see your activity. Unfortunately, scammers can learn things about your personal activity and use this information for social engineering.”
- Only send money to people you know: “If you have to send to someone outside your circle, verify their information first.”
- Remember, #BanksNeverAskThat: “A bank will never ask you to send a payment that way. If you get a request from a financial institution for a peer-to-peer payment, that’s a major red flag.”
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