After Ticketmaster revealed on Friday that 560 million people’s accounts may be compromised due to a data breach, many consumers likely have questions and concerns about their own finances. With that in mind, the personal finance website WalletHub has some advice for how potential victims can safeguard their financial information.
You can check them out below, followed by additional commentary from WalletHub CEO Odysseas Papadimitriou, formerly a senior director at Capital One.
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Update your Ticketmaster Credentials – Begin by updating your password for your Ticketmaster account and activating two-step verification. After that, make sure to set up two-step verification for your email. Doing this will make it more difficult for scammers to access your Ticketmaster account as well as other areas of your life.
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Watch Out for Activity on Credit Card Accounts Linked to Ticketmaster – These accounts are the most likely to be compromised, so watch out for purchases you didn’t make. If you want to be extra cautious, you can ask your credit card company to issue you a replacement with a new number.
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Keep an Eye on Your Tickets for Upcoming Events – Event tickets are valuable, and there are lots of ways to sell them online. If you have tickets to an upcoming event, keep a close eye on your Ticketmaster account and email for any notifications of transfers to a third party.
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Sign Up for Round-the-Clock Credit Monitoring – This will allow you to be notified right away if anyone attempts to open an account using your identity. For instance, WalletHub provides complimentary 24/7 monitoring of your TransUnion credit report.
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A Freeze Is Better Than an Alert – It's more effective to freeze your three main credit reports (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) if you want to protect yourself from fraudulent borrowing. This action will stop anyone other than you from accessing the reports, which means they won't be able to take out a loan or line of credit. On the other hand, a fraud alert doesn't have much impact.
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Never Respond to Unexpected Requests for Information – If you start receiving more unsolicited phone calls and emails asking for personal information, don't be taken aback. Just keep in mind: If you didn't request to be contacted, don't respond.
- Consider Investing in Premium Identity Protection - There are limitations to what you can do to safeguard your identity for free, and given the frequency of security breaches and the increasing sophistication of fraudsters, it's a good idea to explore premium identity protection options such as identity theft insurance, advanced identity alerts, and the ability to consult with identity restoration specialists.