How to avoid online scams

Octo­ber is Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty Aware­ness Month and stay­ing safe online is some­thing we want to ensure our mem­bers take seri­ous­ly. Scam­mers are smarter than ever, and we want to encour­age you to fol­low these tips to keep your infor­ma­tion secure.

Use a long, unique pass­word or passphrase for every online account. Nev­er reuse pass­words across mul­ti­ple accounts, as this increas­es the risk of unau­tho­rized access if one pass­word is com­pro­mised.

Don’t send any sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion online or pro­vide it over the phone. Set up a fam­i­ly safe word or phrase to ensure you are speak­ing with a trust­ed per­son if shar­ing per­son­al infor­ma­tion is nec­es­sary.

Enroll in bank draft to pre­vent month­ly pay­ment scams, tar­get­ing the pay­ment of your elec­tric bill. Pro­vid­ing peace-of-mind that your infor­ma­tion is secure and you aren’t at risk for dis­con­nec­tion takes the wor­ry out of a scam call ask­ing for mon­ey.

Don’t fall vic­tim to pow­er out­age scams. Always com­mu­ni­cate with your co-op through offi­cial chan­nels regard­ing out­ages.

Cold­er tem­per­a­tures are com­ing so beware of false infor­ma­tion and dis­counts for high­er elec­tric bills. Scam­mers often call and ask for you to pay ahead of time, offer­ing a dis­count on your bill. This is some­thing that your co-op would not do, so be sure and call our office to con­firm any offers you receive before mak­ing a pay­ment or pro­vid­ing per­son­al infor­ma­tion.