At Ballast, safeguarding your financial future goes beyond smart investing—it also means protecting your assets from fraud. This week, we’re featuring insights from our Chief Compliance Officer, Jeff Lehmann, who shares essential strategies to help you recognize and avoid scams. Whether it’s identifying red flags in financial transactions or staying ahead of evolving threats, Jeff’s expertise will empower you to take proactive steps in securing your wealth.
Read on to learn how to protect yourself and your finances.
Fraud, phishing, hacking, scams… whatever you want to call these terrible attacks, none of them are enjoyable to experience and all of them are major, and in some cases, life altering events to the victim.
Nobody ever wants this to happen to them or anyone they know, but it is happening now more often than ever. Fraud costs millions of Americans billions of dollars every year and has become a very simple process for bad actors trying to gain access to someone’s financial accounts. Unfortunately, fraudsters are also very creative in the ways they go about attempting to scam someone. They can spoof the name of a close contact, family member, financial advisor, or any other professional contact to make it look like a legitimate request from a legitimate person. Most times, fraud begins with a text message or an email with a dangerous link within the message. If an unsuspecting person clicks the link in the message from the scammer thinking it is really someone they know, that could be the start down a very difficult, expensive and traumatic path.
What do we do to protect you? The benefits of adding an advisor like us to your accounts are significant. We understand your situation and can recognize a transaction that may look unusual. Here are some actions that are taken behind the scenes that you may be unaware of.
- We verbally verify every distribution from clients’ accounts to ensure that the client is authorizing the request.
- Your advisor is informed upon any distribution request to our office. If the distribution appears surprising to the advisor, we may call you to discuss the distribution.
- We monitor all money movement in and out of our clients’ accounts daily. We immediately inquire about any unanticipated cash movement.
- We know our clients well; and our clients know us well. This is a significant step in reducing any fraudulent activities from phone/email scams within your investment accounts.
While we take significant precautions to reduce the chances of fraud, the fraudsters are getting better and better. Below are some items to look out for to prevent becoming a victim of one of these terrible events:
- Make 100% certain you know who the sender is. Please remember, the name on the email may be familiar but the actual email address is most likely going to be a very random, multi-character address that isn’t even close to your professional contact’s email address.
- NEVER click on a link in an email, text message, or message from other applications unless you are 100% sure it is legitimate and from your contact’s name and actual email address. If you aren’t sure if the request is legitimate, simply call your contact to confirm that they sent you such a request.
- #3 – check freecreditreport.com annually – this is a free service that allows you to see what accounts are open under your name. This is a great way to identify any potentially fraudulent accounts or identify old accounts that need to be closed.
- If you have fallen victim to a scam, fraud, hack, etc. please call your advisor or a trusted financial or legal professional immediately, in hopes that they can attempt to mitigate any potential financial harm that you may encounter.
- Subscribe to an ID-Theft/Fraud Prevention Monitoring Service. While we don’t have any affiliation with any of these providers, these are highly rated companies that you might want to consider signing up with:
- LifeLock
- Identity Guard
- Omni Watch
- ID Shield
Always keep all the above in mind when viewing electronic communications from your personal or professional contacts. As great and convenient as technology is, it can also be very harmful to anyone who falls victim to an attack from a fraudster.
As always, please do not hesitate to reach out with any questions, we’re here for you.
Ballast, Inc. is a registered investment adviser with the SEC. Registration with the SEC does not indicate that the adviser has achieved a particular level of skill or ability, nor is it an endorsement by the SEC. All investment strategies have the potential for profit and loss. Ballast, Inc. is not engaged in the practice of law or accounting. Always consult an attorney or tax professional regarding your specific legal or tax situation.
