Bankruptcy Attorneys in Pensacola Provide Guide to Protecting Financial Information

Pensacola, Fla. – Martin Lewis and Steve Jurnovoy, Pensacola area bankruptcy attorneys, are guiding their community on how to protect their financial information this month. Lewis and Jurnovoy are very concerned about the increased risk of identity theft that technology has caused and want to help their community understand how to protect themselves.

The bankruptcy lawyers in Pensacola first advise internet users to create strong and complex passwords for all their online accounts. Consider using a sentence or phrase with punctuation and numbers mixed throughout. The shorter or easier a password is, the easier it is for a hacker to guess it and access others’ accounts. Since many websites save credit card info, a thief can easily make unauthorized purchases from any computer anywhere.

Lewis and Jurnovoy also stress the importance of checking bank and credit card statements carefully. Unfortunately, many people glance absentmindedly at their financial statements instead of itemizing each expense. It’s important to know what every expense is so theft doesn’t go unnoticed. Identity thefts or hackers will often make small purchases with someone else’s money to see if it goes unnoticed. If it doesn’t, that will incentivize the thief to spend more.

The last piece of advice Lewis and Jurnovoy provides their community is to set up a fraud alert with their bank and credit card companies. A fraud alert is an automatic notification sent when someone’s account is used to make a purchase that a bank or credit card company deems suspicious. An account holder who receives the notification can either accept or deny the purchase depending on if they made the purchase or not. If the charge is, in fact, fraudulent, immediate steps can be taken to rectify the situation before more damage is done.

For more information about how to protect financial information from theft or fraud, contact the offices of Lewis and Jurnovoy, P.A. at (850) 432-9110 or visit their website: www.lewisandjurnovoy.com.