You are here Home » Tech » How To's » How to Secure Big Online Money Transfers

How to Secure Big Online Money Transfers

by Innov8tiv.com

It’s quite difficult to imagine going to a bank branch to make a money transfer today. Online transfers are swift and straightforward, but many people are still highly concerned about safety when it comes to transferring substantial amounts. Reading this post, you are probably amongst them, so this guide is for you. Below, e-payment experts from Maxpay payments gateway describe the best options for securing big online transfers. Be attentive and make sure to use them.

Use Only Authoritative Services

As money transfers are done only by specialized licensed services and banks, scammers may pretend to be such an entity or even try to act like a real branch of a popular brand. The first thing you can do to filter out suspicious middlemen is to search for reviews on authoritative websites. These can be resources of financial institutions, highly trusted bloggers, licensed financial advisors, nationwide news websites, etc. The absence of reviews or a large number of negative comments is always a bad sign.

If you want to go deeper and ensure that a service isn’t a scam in the disguise of a popular brand, you have the right to review the policies of the service and request documentation by e-mail or other means offered. The support team must disclose everything you request, but, most probably, all the information will already be freely available.

Mobile applications

Although the App Store, Google Play, and Amazon AppStore are well-researched by moderators, they cannot guarantee that all the scam apps are deleted. If you find any money transfer app interesting and wish to try it, you shouldn’t install it before reading the reviews on at least a couple of trusted websites.

It’s also important to understand that most apps don’t permit large transfers. For example, the super-popular Zelle app doesn’t allow you to send over $500 per week if your bank isn’t partnered with it. PayPal is more flexible and allows you to send from $10,000 to $60,000 per domestic and international transaction if your account is verified. Online services with higher limits also exist, but you should beware of those that offer limitless transfers.

Online banking

All modern banks provide online transfer services, including online wire transfers, and usually offer the highest limits. In most cases, banking apps and websites are much more cumbersome than apps focused on small transactions and require more steps and authorization info from both senders and recipients. The benefit of this approach is low human error probability, an option to recall payments from wrong recipients, and strong breach protection.

Are Wire Transfers Secure?

Wire transfers have been amongst the most demanded ways to send money (especially internationally) for decades. Today, you don’t have to go to your bank or Western Union branch. You can simply request a wire transfer online. However, US citizens lose millions of dollars annually on this type of transfer. What is the reason for that?

Wire transfers let you send big amounts to businesses and people domestically and internationally quite quickly. In most cases, they are almost immediate but non-reversible. This allows scammers to implement various schemes in order to send your money to the wrong recipients “by mistake” or to raise service commissions after announcing a lower initial fee.

Actually, there are dozens of ways to cheat here, but you can cut all the attempts by avoiding authoritative wire transfer providers. Next, you have to triple-check all the information you provide as even a single typo can forward your money to the wrong recipient who won’t return the money.

Don’t Use Public WiFi & Computers

If you have to send money online on the go, never do it via public WiFi hotspots. They are too vulnerable to hacker attacks and can infect your device with malware. Always use mobile Internet instead and share it on your laptop if needed. Allegedly, VPN apps protect your data when you are connected to a public network, but there are no safety guarantees anyway.

The same refers to public computers. It’s very easy for anyone to come and install malware on them to intercept your personal data and use it for stealing money from your bank accounts. Even if your initial transfer is successful, it doesn’t mean that the rest of the money is safe.

Ensure Connection Security

Sometimes it’s very easy to spot fake websites of trusted transfer service providers even if they look identical to the original. To do this, you have to click or tap on the address bar in your browser to reveal the full website address and make sure that the address begins with “https://” instead of “http://”. While the second is quite normal for low-budget websites that don’t collect your personal data, it’s also unacceptable for any platform that conducts financial operations and stores your credit card info.

If you notice insecure protocol, don’t authorize such a website and try re-entering the full address of your banking website manually. Actually, manual address input is recommended for all the websites related to finance as they are always under the scope of cyber scammers.

Run an Antivirus

A trusted antivirus app, such as Kaspersky or Avast,  will add an extra firewall for your apps and browsers and minimize the risks of fraudulent activity on your device. It’s important to enable automatic firewall updates to keep its database up to date with the ever-growing array of malicious apps, websites, algorithms, viruses, etc.

What If?

If you have at least a tiny suspicion of unpermitted activity on your account after a transaction or your transfer doesn’t reach the recipient, you should:

Notify your financial organization about it immediately and try to recall the transfer;

Report fraud to Equifax, Experian, TransUnion, or another credit reporting agency;

Apply for fraud liability protection.

Taking It Serious

Fraudulent schemes will exist forever, so it’s essential to stay on top of your online security, especially when it comes to financial operations of any scale. Never send money to people and businesses you don’t trust, always request liability policies, and apply self-protection practices. This way won’t lead you to wrong.

Let’s remove this, I don’t think we should promote any antiviruses

You may also like