We've been thinking about sending a note, and another recent case compelled us to reach out to you.
Your investment accounts are often not federally protected from theft as securely as bank and credit card accounts.
This means that your retirement accounts, brokerage accounts, and other assets may be at risk from scammers pretending to be you and conducting fraudulent transactions to steal your money.
As a result, as you've probably heard us say in the past, it's important to monitor your accounts at least monthly.
In the case of Schwab and many other brokerages, you want to notify them and/or ISC ASAP, meaning within 10 days of the end of the month of any transactions that seem suspect.
We tell our clients that the most important things to pay attention to are transactions and not dividends, trades, or account values.
There's so much minutia in the monthly statements that very few people have any interest in them, other than that the money is still there, and the balance is hopefully going up over time.
Please review the first page with numbers on it to ensure no unauthorized distributions or withdrawals occurred.
That's THE most important thing.
Just like you watch your credit card for unauthorized charges, you want to watch your investment accounts for unauthorized withdrawals. This is an important task to do every month.
If somebody were to get into your account and you didn't notice for several months, it's possible that the custodian would not refund your assets.
We have a page dedicated to this on our website, and please call or email us if you would like to discuss this further.
Also, please turn on two-factor authentication for your email. You can Google your provider and two factors, or we can help you over the phone. If they don't offer two-factor such as Earthlink, some of us believe that you need a new secure email address. Changing is a pain, but better than the alternative.
We are here to help you with questions around these issues. Please call anytime if you would like to connect and brainstorm around them.
Your Team at ISC Financial Advisors
952-835-1560