Americans Wary of Shopping at Breached Retailers

If you are one of the millions of Americans who had to deal with fraud or identity theft as a result of a retailer breach, you are probably a bit wary of returning to the scene of that crime. You are not alone. In fact, nearly two-thirds of consumers surveyed by digital security company Gemalto said they likely would not do business with a company that experienced a breach in which financial information was stolen. Nearly half said the same if personal information was part of the breach.

People are not unjustified in feeling this way. Nearly half of the American population received a notification about a credit card number being compromised last year according to the Wall Street Journal.

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• Check your payment card charges frequently. If at all possible, don’t wait till the statement arrives, but check online every couple of days just to make sure everything is fine. Report anything suspicious to your card-issuer right away.

• Change passwords for important accounts frequently. Do this at least quarterly, but more often if you can. Make sure you use strong passwords that are not easily guessed or cracked. Don’t use the same passwords for multiple online sites either. Password re-use is real and has caught out numerous companies in the past year and is being blamed for breaches at Neiman Marcus, LinkedIn, and Fitbit to name a few.

• Do your online shopping at sites you know and trust. Make sure that any site in which you put your payment card or other personal details is secured. Look for the lock icon and the https:// before entering anything. If it isn’t there, the site may be unsafe and you should shop elsewhere.

• If you are shopping online or doing any important transactions, don’t use public WiFi without using a secure VPN as well. Pubic WiFi is a haven for those wishing to steal information that passes through those connections. Even if the clerk gives you the password for the WiFi, it doesn’t mean it’s safe to look at your checking account information. Do that at home if you don’t have a VPN on your device.

The good news is that retailers that did experience a breach are probably safer now than before. After all, they sure don’t want that bad publicity again any more than you want to deal with credit card fraud.