Protect Your Information

Everyday you share personal information about yourself with others.  It’s so routine that you may not even realize you’re doing it.  You may write a check at the grocery store, charge tickets to a ball game, mail your tax returns, buy a gift online, schedule a doctor’s appointment or apply for a credit card.  Each transaction requires you to share your personal information. 
 
It’s important to find out what happens with that information you provide.  These organizations may use your information to simply process your order, tell you about products, services or to share it with others.  And then there are the unscrupulous individuals who want your information to commit fraud.  Consumers targeted by identity thieves usually don’t know they’ve been victimized.  But when the fraudsters fail to pay the bills or repay the loans, collection agencies begin pursuing the consumers to cover the debts they didn’t even know they had. 
 
At Iowa State Bank, we encourage you to make sure all your transactions are secure and your personal information is protected.  Here’s some tips to help you manage your personal information wisely and to minimize it’s misuse:

• Shred all records containing personal information before you discard them. 
• Protect your Social Security number.  Don’t carry your Social Security card in your wallet or write your Social Security number on a check. Give it out only if absolutely necessary. 
• Keep your personal information in a secure place at home, especially if you have roommates, employ outside help, or are having work done in your house.  Shred it when you don’t need it anymore.  
• Don’t give out personal information, including your bank account number, on the phone, through the mail, or over the Internet unless you’ve initiated the contact and you know whom you’re dealing with.  Before revealing personal information, find out how it will be used or shared with others.
• Be mindful of organizations that have your personal information that may not guard it as closely as you’d like.  For example, family members, your children’s school, and civic or religious organizations.
• Request your driver’s license and vehicle registration information not made available to anyone but law enforcement.
• When writing checks to pay on your accounts, don’t put the full account number in the “memo” line.  Instead, put the last four numbers.  The company knows your account number and this way the people who process your payment don’t have access to the full number.
• Limit personal information you have on printed checks.
• Don’t let anyone swipe your Debit Card twice without giving you a transaction cancelled receipt for the first transaction