Identity theft occurs when someone steals your personal information to establish credit, purchase items, or to borrow money in your name. Unfortunately, more and more Americans today have become victims of identity theft fraud. Here are some tips to help you protect yourself from identity theft:

Protect Yourself Against Identity Theft

• Don't release your financial information such as checking account and credit card numbers, or your Social Security number, to anyone over the phone or email, unless you know the person or organization with which you are dealing. Don't even release that information to someone claiming to be from your bank. Magna Bank will NEVER ask for any personal information via email.
• Report lost or stolen checks or printed deposit slips immediately. Review new deliveries of checks and deposit slips to make sure none have been stolen in transit.
• Notify your bank of suspicious phone inquiries such as those asking for account information to “verify a statement” or “award a prize.”
• Shred financial solicitations, financial statements, or bank statements, before disposing of them.
• Deposit your mail into a secure, official Postal Service collection box rather than at your mail box at home. Thieves may use your outgoing mail to steal your identity.
• If regular bills fail to reach you, call the company to find out why. Someone may have filed a false change of address notice to divert your mail to his or her address.
• If your bills include questionable items, investigate immediately. Questionable items on your bills are often the first sign of identity theft fraud.
• Contact your major credit reporting companies to review your credit file and make certain the information is correct. For a small fee, you can obtain a copy of your credit report at any time. The three major credit bureaus are:

  Equifax	800.685.1111
  Experian	888.397.3742
  TransUnion	800.888.4213

You can obtain one free credit report per year from each credit bureau by calling 1-877-322-8228 or visiting
www.annualcreditreport.com

Protect Yourself Online

• Choose passwords that are difficult for others to guess and change your password periodically. Magna Bank requires your Internet Banking password to be at least 8 characters long and must contain both alphabetic characters and numbers. No word or name should be used. In addition, because the alphabetic characters are case sensitive, we recommend that you user a combination of upper and lower case letters.
• Leave suspicious sites. If you suspect that a website is not what it purports to be, leave the site immediately. Do not follow any of the instructions it presents.
• Do not send sensitive personal or financial information unless it is encrypted on a secure website. Look for indicators of a secure site, such as a lock icon in the browser's status bar or a website URL that begins with "https" instead of "http".
• Do business with only companies you know and trust.
• Be alert for scam emails and don't reply to any e-mail that requests your personal information. Be very suspicious of any email from a business or person that asks you to provide or confirm your password, Social Security Number, or other highly sensitive information.
• If you get an email that warns you, with little or no notice, that an account of yours will be shut down unless you confirm your billing information, do not reply or click on a 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.
• If you need to update your information online, use the normal process you have used before, or open a new browser window and type in the website address yourself.
• If a website address is unfamiliar, it is probably not real. Only use the address that you have used before, or start at your normal home page.
• Open emails only when you know the sender. Be especially careful with attachments and hyperlinks in emails. Even a friend may accidentally send an email with a virus.
• Make sure you home computer has the most current anti-virus software. Anti-virus software needs frequent updates to guard against new viruses. Make sure you download the anti-virus updates as soon as you are notified that a download is available.
• Install a personal firewall to help prevent unauthorized access to your home computer. This is especially important if you connect to the internet via a cable modem or a digital subscriber line (DSL) modem.
• Be careful when using public computers to perform any type of personal financial business. If spyware has been installed on the machine, just logging in to check your account balance may give away personal information. If you do log on to a public computer, always be alert to your surroundings to prevent anyone from looking over your shoulder.
• Use caution in downloading files or programs from the Internet. Only do so from reputable websites and read all privacy and licensing agreements carefully to understand what the programs will do and whether any other programs are downloaded at the same time.
• Monitor your transactions. Review you order confirmations and bank account statements as soon as you receive them to make sure you are being charged only for transaction you made. Immediately report any irregularities in your Magna Bank accounts.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has created a series of multimedia presentations to help educate the public on Identity Theft. Click here to view these videos.

Identity Theft Victims

If you have been a victim of identity theft, you should do the following:

• File a police report
• File a report with the Federal Trade Commission.
• Complete an identity theft affidavit
• Contact your Bank.
• Request that accounts/credit cardsbe closed due to fraud: “closed at consumer's request.”
• Notify any one of the three credit bureau's fraud units. A single call to any of the three bureaus can result in a “fraud alert” being placed at all of the bureaus and a free credit report from each organization. NOTE: Immediately notify the credit bureaus but you may want to wait a month or so to receive your free credit reports to give suspicious activity time to show up on the report. After receiving a report, review them for suspicious activity; such as inquiries from companies you did not contact, accounts you did not open, and debts on your accounts that you cannot explain. Also, verify your SSN, address(es), name or initials, and employers. Contact financial institutions or companies where fraudualent activity has occurred.
• Report check theft to check verification companies.
• Check post office for unauthorized change of address requests.
• Follow-up your conversations with any entity with a letter sent via certified mail (return receipt requested), keep copies of all correspondence, and keep originals of your police report or other documents.

Where to Get Help with Identity Theft