10 Tips to Protect Your Checking Account

It is much simpler to take some time to safeguard yourself before the criminals get you and your sneaked out identity is manipulated to commit a fraud. The rationale to avoid such a circumstance is to follow the tips to secure your checking accounts.

The tips for protecting your checking account are:




1. Never give the personal account number and bank routing number to anyone whom you are not familiar with. Reason being, these two key numbers are the essence which are required to create an electronic draft against a personal account. A good rule of thumb is to by no means hand out the above mentioned information if not one knows the corporation or concern asking for it or unless the account holder is the one who is initiating the transaction.

2. Avoid putting the home phone number on the cheques. One can put a mobile phone number to make sure that an alien person does not get account holder's home listing.

3.The very common type of cheque fraud is the usage of bank cheques by some other unknown person. One should keep track of the dispatched cheques and never leave out blank ones with signatures on it. There are some individuals who can steal blank cheques to exercise for their vested interests.

4. One should review his monthly bank statement. An individual has a limited time frame to report errors and omissions, on unauthorized debits on checking account to the respective bank, normally, 90 days. If someone does not receive his bank statement of a particular month, immediately contact the concerned person or representative of that bank for the issuance.

5. It is very important to notify the bank about any trouble as soon as possible. The earlier one let his bank knows that something is wide of the mark going on, the better it will be for him. One should be well versed with all the relevant documentation including the bank statements and other important notes of conversations for the perusal.

6. Furthermore, If an account holder thinks that somebody has gained way in to his or her account, it is crucial to tell the bank and in return follow their instructions

7. It's not the criminals all the time, sometimes the account holders themselves create problems for themselves. If an account holder does not have enough money in his or her bank account, it is important that he or she should not write cheques or permits the debit. It is due to the law of 'check 21' that enables banks to convert cheques into electronic items for processing. Cheques are frequently being cleared on a much faster pace than they used to, usually as quick as a debit card transaction.

8. Another thing that is important for an account holder is that he or she should know the basic rights under the consumer protection laws.

9. While using online banking tools, at all times delete the personal user ID and passwords and then log out from the accounts once the work is complete. Never save personal information on the web page or ask the computer to remember the login ID or password. If one fails to pay attention to this advice, he or she can be left in a fix or a vulnerable situation.

10. Over drafting is also an issue that create problems. When there is a joint account and all the account holders use the debit/credit cards for buying and cash advances, with a lack of communication then this can create an overdraft in an account. One should know what the others are doing.

By Humaira Asad
source : ezinearticles