Identity Theft

You can protect your money, investments and, above all, your credit, from the growing threat of identity theft. Your personal data can be used by an identity theif to obtain personal information that will allow them to make transactions in your name or obtain access to your banking accounts. These fraudulent transactions can negatively affect your credit, so learn more about simple precautions to help you avoid this.

You can protect your money, investments and credit from the increasing threat of fraud and identity theft.

The most common fraudulent transactions are:

Identity theft
Falsifying of documents
Signature forgery
Stealing of checks

Some precautionary measures that can be taken are:

Be careful to whom you give your personal data, such as your complete name, address, social security number, date of birth and account numbers.
Maintain a file of your documents and destroy all those that contain your personal information.
Use electronic debit or direct payment, social security checks, retirement checks, etc.
Never provide your user name, password or PIN number to anyone.
Never write down your PIN number, ATM password, or your credit card or check book number.
Change your password periodically.
Secure Internet pages are identified by different symbols depending on your browser. (Internet Explorer uses a yellow lock on the right side of the page) Verify that the certificate of authenticity (yellow lock) genuinely belongs to the company with which you are completing the online transaction.
Never respond to e-mail communications that you have not initiated.
Never enter your personal data in unsolicited "pop-ups" that might appear while you are surfing the internet.
Never provide your personal data to a telemarketing agent on an unsolicited call.
Review all your account statements and report any suspicious activity.
Immediately inform your financial institution or credit card provider when you lose your ATM, credit card, check book or savings passbook.
Save all your ATM and credit card receipts in a safe place. Some receipts may contain your account number.
FirstBank will never contact you to solicit personal information through e-mail or telephone. FirstBank will only ask for your personal data when you call FirstBank to request information or make a transaction or when you voluntarily use our online banking system.

Fraudulent e-mails and illegitimate Internet pages

One of the most common ways to be a victim of identity theft is to respond to fraudulent emails. This modality is also recognized as "Phishing".

Identity theft through electronic means has become very sophisticated allowing these criminals to emulate legitimate institution"s websites, utilizing their logos and fonts to confuse the user. Even fraudulent email messages appear to be from a legitimate company.

Generally, these email messages ask the user to click on a link that sends them to a fraudulent page or attached documentation where the user is asked to enter his personal information.

If you are already a client of a financial institution, this institution will never request private or personal information through email.