Unfortunately it’s time for us to own up to this particular fact; our financial information is no longer secure, which means that if we’re business owners dealing with customers who are paying us, or we’re paying for our own business or personal products, we need to be more careful and try to protect ourselves as much as possible.
In the last few years there have been countless reports on major retail outlets that have been hacked with all kinds of financial information stolen on its customers. We’re also hearing about businesses such as insurance, the government, and banks that don’t seem to be able to stop these criminals from breaking in. If these organizations can’t stop them, then what the heck can we do to protect ourselves and our customers?
Truthfully, if someone really wants to get into our records there’s not a lot we can do. However, just because we may not be able to initially stop them doesn’t mean we should lay down and make it easy for them. Here are three things to think about as they pertain to your customers and your own finances.
1. Find a secure way to collect credit card information.
If you’re still using paper and the swiping machine to accept credit card payments it’s time to move into the 21st century. There are much more secure ways that are also faster such as setting up a link to PayPal or using something you can attach to your smartphone like Square. It’s easy to figure out how to use both of these, and these companies were created by people who know a lot about security.
2. Think about alternate ways to pay for things online.
Unless you’re buying something from a major company, or the URL (web address) begins with “https”, it’s probably not the smartest thing to buy things using your regular credit cards or debit cards online. The two better ways of handling this are to either send someone a check or call them and ask them if they can take your information over the phone. Yes, there are a lot of people who get scared to give out that kind of information over the phone, but these days that’s a lot safer than buying things online when you don’t know if those websites have been hacked and your information is being redirected.
You could think about purchasing a prepaid debit card, where you put only so much money on it and use that to make purchases. The problem with that is that some of them come laden with a lot of fees that, even though they hurt less than people stealing your money, eats up the amount of money you’ve put on your card way too fast.
3. Apply for a low balance credit card.
This is a very good idea because the hackers could only get so much off of the card. Also, credit cards are easier and faster to get satisfaction from the issuer, because banks usually want to send you all kinds of forms to fill out about the fraud that’s taken place.
These three ideas are worth taking into consideration to protect both you and your customers financial information.
