I’m considering switching over to internet banking. It’s free with the account I have at my bank, and I’m also considering doing business with ING Direct, to try and save some money.
But I’m hesitating, because I worry about fraud and having my accounts cleared out. I hear about scams all the time, and about databases being hacked and people’s information getting out. I know about the phishing scams and I know better than to give out my info by e-mail, but I still worry about things going wrong. I’m running Win XP and using IExplorer, and we all know how vulnerable they are to viruses… does the same apply to hackers? Maybe I’m just being paranoid.
What do you think? Is internet banking perfectly safe, or is it asking for trouble?
I’ve been doing it for about three years now (Sun Trust) and have never had a single problem. I never get any emails from my bank. They have a message center where you ask & retrieve messages on their site. I’ve never know them to get hacked. I’ve always had easy access to their site (except for rare system maintenance periods which never lasted for more than one day).
I do not store passwords on my computer and perform daily cleaning procedures, so anyone who got into my computer would get nothing of interest.
Speaking as someone who works to keep your money safe… Seriously. Financial information security is what I do for a living. Trimmed so it doesn’t look like I’m advertising, this is our online banking security commitment:
(bolding mine)
Look for a similar description from your bank. Chances are their policy will be similar. If so, you’re safe, so long as you keep your information confidential.
I worked at Intuit (makers of Quicken and Quickbooks) many years ago when they just started online banking and billpay. In fact I was on the first online banking/bill pay support team. Pretty cool gig in that since it was just starting we had a direct line to the developers, which doesn’t happen much in support, and we got problems resolved pretty quickly.
I’ve been doing online banking since. In fact I came across this post while checking to make sure my last loan payment got processed correctly. I have never had a problem. It’s simple, secure and I can check my bank accounts at 3 AM. Once my direct deposit starts (just started a new job and signed up for it) I won’t even have to hit an ATM for deposits. In fact the nearest branch is of my bank is a 10 or 12 hour drive.
I use MS Money now (got it for free) and do just about everything through it.
I started paying a bill that meant using Bpay or queueing to pay it. So I started paying on the net. Since then I haven’t been into a bank nor phoned or posted anything to pay any bills. It’s great. I pile my bills by the PC and once a month log on and pay them in minutes.
It is far, far safer than, say, handing over your debit card to a waiter.
Of course, you have to make sure you’re not dumb enough to respond to emails purporting to be from your bank, asking you to go to a site and enter your PIN/password etc. These can be very well disguised, but even so - don’t fall for it.
I believe most sites nowadays only ask for certain letters from your password - say the third and seventh letters, rather than the whole password, in a bid to prevent the scams from working - my bank (Natwest) does this, so I know that if any site were to ask for the whole password it would be a fake.
To be extra sure you are safe, only ever access the online banking site by typing the URL into the address bar yourself, NOT by clicking on an external link, which could be spoofed to another site.
I’ve been banking online for many years now and have only had one problem. But the problem wasn’t with security of the site, but rather with a company who claimed they hadn’t received the final payment of a 12 months same-as-cash transaction on time. They assessed me a few hundred bucks in accrued interest. Their records showed that I hadn’t sent payment until 12 days AFTER the offer had expired, when the payment date was entered as 5 days BEFORE the expiration date.
I called the online customer service dept of my bank, explained to them the situation, and ::snap:: problem resolved in my favor.
I have been using online banking for several years, and online billpay, and I can say that the convenience cannot be overstated. My credit has even improved since I started this, because I have a reminder that tells me when my bills are due, or I can schedule a payment a couple of weeks in advance. Now I don’t even get statements mailed to me, nor do I get credit card statements, so I save a lot of paper, too. It’s a win-win.
I don’t think I ever want to go back to regular banks. There are only 1 or 2 bills I don’t pay by internet banking. Mind you, I’m with KeyBank, which has internet and real branches. But I rarely go into the bank…even my expense checks I deposit via ATM.
I’ve been using my banks online banking services since they were introduced in 1996 [I believe] with no problems. [It was dial-up and you had to pick up a floppy with the software on it from a branch.] But not having any problems personally doesn’t really prove anything.
Choosing not to take advantage of your bank’s online services doesn’t necessarily protect you from everything you’re worried about. Your account details are still stored in a database at your bank and are almost assuredly passed around internally and with any service providers it uses. You need to trust your bank enough to keep your data safe in order to do any business with them at all, online or off. If you do, online banking shouldn’t be much of a concern.
If you’re running anti-virus and anti-spyware software, keeping up with patches for your operating system, and taking even basic precautions [e.g., secure passwords] – all of which you should be doing anyway – your chances of being a victim of fraud or theft is probably less than being mugged at the ATM.
