Security

Helping you avoid fraud.

Reporting Fraudulent or Suspicious Activity

Dime Community Bank will never contact you via unsolicited email to verify personal information previously given to us. This includes your account number, password, or Social Security number.

Contact us immediately if you suspect you have fallen victim to a social engineering attack and have disclosed information concerning your Dime accounts.

Call us at 800.321.DIME (3463) or visit any local Dime branch location.

Regularly monitoring your account activity is a good way to detect fraudulent activity. If you notice unauthorized transactions under your account, notify our Bank immediately.

Monitoring and Detecting Fraudulent or Suspicious Activity

Through an important partner, Dime utilizes leading technology FraudWatch®Plus and the expertise to monitor, help detect and minimize fraud on Dime ATM or debit cards. If a potential fraud is detected on your card, you will receive a call from Fraud Prevention Services. The purpose of this call is to help detect and prevent fraud from happening to our customers. Fraud Prevention Services will never ask for enough information to compromise your account.

Please contact us if you plan to travel internationally, or outside of your normal geographic area, and we will make sure your card is working for you while you travel. It is also important that we have your current phone number on file so that we may contact you in the event that suspicious or out of the ordinary debit card or ATM card activity is recognized on your account.

How To Protect Yourself Against Identity Theft

Never provide your personal information over the phone, through the mail or over the Internet unless you are confident you know the party you are dealing with and are using a secure protocol. Do not include Social Security number or bank account numbers in email or text message communications.

If you are not sure that a contact is legitimate, contact the company yourself, either by phone, in person, or by visiting the company’s Web site by typing in the site’s address or using a page you have previously bookmarked.

Don’t carry your Personal Identification Numbers (PINs) with you–memorize them and keep them in a safe, secure location.

Review account statements regularly to ensure that all charges are correct. Take advantage of online banking to review activity and identify suspicious activity.

Tear or shred personal financial documents such as charge receipts, credit applications, insurance forms, or any other important material.

Keep your Social Security card in a safe place and only give out the number when absolutely necessary.

How To Avoid Social Engineering Attacks

In a social engineering attack, an attacker uses human interaction to manipulate a person into providing them information. People have a natural tendency to trust. Social engineering attacks attempt to exploit this tendency in order to steal your information. Once the information has been stolen it can be used to commit fraud or identity theft.

Criminals use a variety of social engineering attacks to attempt to steal information, including:

Phishing Schemes
Website Spoofing

How To Avoid Phishing Schemes

Phishing is an electronic scam where an attacker attempts acquiring information by masquerading as a trustworthy entity through electronic communication. Phishing messages often direct the recipient to a spoof website, which instructs you to update your account information by providing your Social Security number, bank account number, PIN, password, birth date, etc. Phishing attacks are typically carried out through email, instant messaging, telephone calls, and text messages (SMS).

Prevention Tips:

  • Delete email and text messages that ask you to confirm or provide sensitive information. Legitimate companies don’t ask for sensitive information through email or text messages.
  • Beware of visiting website addresses sent to you in an unsolicited message.
  • Even if you feel the message is legitimate, type web addresses into your browser or use bookmarks instead of clicking links contained in messages.
  • Try to independently verify any details given in the message directly with the company.
  • Utilize anti-phishing features available in your email client and/or web browser.
  • Utilize an email SPAM filtering solution to help prevent phishing emails from being delivered.

How To Avoid Website Spoofing

Website spoofing is the act of creating a fake website to mislead individuals into sharing sensitive information. Spoof websites are typically made to look exactly like a legitimate website published by a trusted organization.

Prevention Tips:

  • Pay attention to the web address (URL) of websites. A website may look legitimate, but the URL may have a variation in spelling or use a different domain.
  • If you are suspicious of a website, close it and contact the company directly.
  • Do not click links on social networking sites, pop-up windows, or non-trusted websites.
  • Links can take you to a different website than their labels indicate. Typing an address in your browser is a safer alternative.
  • Only give sensitive information to websites using a secure connection. Verify the web address begins with “https://” (the “s” is for secure) rather than just “http://”.
  • Avoid using websites when your browser displays certificate errors or warnings.