Stealing a person's personal information for the purposes of robbing that person is known as identity theft. It is a crime that can hurt a person's credit for years. An identity thief is capable of almost anything. They can pull all the money out of a person's bank accounts. They can use a person's identity to apply for loans. They can even open credit card accounts or run up balances on a person's existing cards, using personal information that they steal. Such information can include the person's address, phone number, social security number and more.
Because of the escalation of identity theft, many financial institutions are taking increased security measures as well as providing various preventative services to their customers. One of these financial institutions is Citibank.
The cares taken by Citibank and identity theft protection procedures are vital for the protection of the customers. After all, identity theft is plaguing more and more financial institution customers every day, including those at Citibank. Citibank takes great pride in protecting its customers' security as much as possible, in order to prevent identity theft.
Citibank and Identity Theft Measures Offered
Online banking is one of the Citibank identity theft procedures available to Citibank customers. Customers can view their bank statements online, at any time, using the online banking features. All a customer needs to do is log in to the Citibank website. So, the customer options at Citibank and identity theft procedures show that Citibank cares for its customers.
That particular option from Citibank and identity theft prevention service has one major benefit. It prevents the customer from needing to receive statements in the mail. That way, a customer's financial statements cannot be stolen from their mail box. So, a customer's personal information has less chance of falling into the hands of identity thieves and scam artists.
Another identity theft measure that is provided by Citibank is in relationship to their credit card department. Those within the credit card department monitor activity and have in place an early fraud warning mechanism. This means that if Citibank personnel detect any unusual activity they will immediately endeavor to contact the credit card holder to insure that the activity demonstrated is authorized.
Additional Citibank And Identity Theft Measures
There are many other possibilities available at Citibank and identity theft devices in place. For instance, when a credit card is reissued or a new credit card is issued, the account is blocked temporarily. That way, it cannot be used until it has been properly activated by the cardholder. The identity theft protection procedure involves the cardholder calling a number on the back of their card from their home phone. Once Citibank has verified that the card was activated from the phone number associated with the account, the account is activated and available to be used.
The relationship between Citibank and identity theft does not stop there either. In fact, Citibank has a specific e-mail address set up to handle fraud cases. So, if a customer should get an e-mail claiming to be from Citibank, they do not need to reply immediately. Instead, they can contact Citibank's fraud protection e-mail address to see if the e-mail was legitimate. So, as you can see, there are many options available to customers at Citibank and identity theft procedures in place for their protection.
