Fraudsters don't take vacations, and we encourage you to not take a vacation from monitoring your accounts or to let your guard down. Below are a few security tips to help prevent or mitigate fraud.

1. Use the Bank of the West Mobile Banking App so you can closely monitor the activity on your BOW accounts.

2. Use the CardValet product offered by Bank of the West (another Mobile Banking App offered at no-charge for your convenience), which will allow you the "power at your fingertips" in turning your BOW Debit Card on/off, setting personal spending limits (a budget tool), and setting your transaction limitations by merchant type, geographic area, transaction amount, and transaction type. Apply your personal settings for alerts of activity on your debit card to allow you to stay in synch with your transactions. This is especially handy while traveling on vacation to avoid your card from being compromised, which is an inconvenience that puts the vacation on "hold" until you have a new card in hand.

3. As you are doing your spring cleaning, be mindful of discarding documents that contain confidential/personal information. Consider buying a shredder or take measures to destroy your confidential documents in an applicable manner-don't make it easy for someone to take over your identity or acquire access to your accounts. 

4. If you are traveling for an extended period of time, consider placing your US Mail on "hold" so that any confidential documents delivered to that mailbox aren't stolen and then fraudulently used. (Also, consider switching to e-statements, it is considered more secure).

5. To protect your account, we monitor the activity on your debit card for potential fraudulent activity, and we may call you if we feel that a transaction is suspicious or isn't considered normal debit card activity based on your transaction history.

6. Avoid Phishing Scams-wherein a fraudster tries to disguise themselves as a legitimate business or as someone that you know, requesting confidential information from you or asking you to click on a link, or open an attachment that may contain a virus or to allow them access to your accounts. 

7. Be aware of "spoof emails" that could appear to be sent from someone that you know-look closely for spelling errors in the email address. If you aren't sure of the legitimacy of an email then exercise caution and call the known person to ask if they sent you this email. 

8. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has alerted financial institutions of a fraud scheme wherein taxpayers are contacted by the fraudster (claiming to be from the IRS) and demanding return of a tax refund, to promote awareness, you may click here to read more from the IRS on how to protect yourself from falling victim to this fraudulent activity.