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The Holiday Season is officially here! While it’s the season of giving, fraudsters are unfortunately ready to take your information. Here are some tips to help protect yourself when using your debit card in stores or online this year.

• Shopping Online
  • Look for online merchants that use CAPTCHA controls on their checkout pages (retyping in a series of numbers and letters or clicking on images within a picture) – this prevents automated transaction initial by bots.
  • Use merchant sites and small business sites that are known to you.
  • Be careful following shopping links from social media sites. Try searching the merchant’s name and shop their website directly.  Links can lead to third party sellers that may not have secure checkout or browsing security in place.
• Shopping In-Store
  • When swiping your card – If the card reader shows signs of tampering – Alert the merchant and use an alternate form of payment. Fraudsters are known for “popping” card recorders on external card readers, like at the gas pumps for example.

TFCU is actively taking measures to ensure the safety of your accounts. We also reccomend monitoring your accounts regularly yourself and report any transactions that you did not initiate. No matter how minimal the amount seems (even $1.00) – bots will use small dollar amounts to attempt to gain access. TFCU offers many options to allow you to monitor your accounts regularly to spot any unauthorized charges, including:

• Online & Mobile Banking to check transaction history and set up account alerts
• TFCU's Card Control app to control your Debit Card usage and receive instant alerts when your card is used
• Real-Time Fraud Alerts to alert you when a potentially fraudulent transaction has attempted on your card. 

For additional tips and links as well as some information about the policies & procedures we have in place to protect your information, click here.