First Alliance Blog

If you have ever been on the Internet, you have seen advertisements offering free trials for everything from whiter teeth and bigger muscles to jewelry and appliances. While offering a free trial of a product or service is perfectly legal, consumers should still be wary. The fine print of those offers end up costing consumers hundreds of dollars. It’s important to understand how free trial offers work so you can avoid feeling scammed by less than honest business practices.

Do you know what to do if you see unexplained charges on your debit card or credit card? Do you call your card carrier or the merchant first? Does it mean your identity was stolen? There are a lot of questions that arise when you see unexplained transactions on your statements. The good new is you can dispute the unexplained transactions on your accounts.

Your credit report is an important part of your financial health. However, for it to be a reliable source of information to creditors it needs to be accurate. If you have found an error on your credit report, such as a trade line that isn’t yours or a debt that has long been paid off, then you will need to file a credit dispute to have the information corrected. Here are the things you need to know for filing a credit dispute.

After Bernie Madoff was caught stealing billions of dollars from investors he had lured into his Ponzi scheme, people realized that not everything that shines is gold. You may not run into a white-collar criminal like Madoff, but if you've done research online for investments over the years, you'll end up running across scams sooner or later. Be on the lookout for signs such as these:

With all the stories in today's news about security breaches and identity theft, you might wonder how in the world you can protect all your personal information and financial data. There is no 100% foolproof way to eliminate data theft, but you can minimize the chances of it happening with certain fraud monitoring and prevention services, as well as virtual credit cards. If you shop online frequently and your budgeting plan includes credit card security, Money Under 30 recommends considering virtual credit cards.

The security of your personal and financial information is our highest priority. We have many processes and procedures in place to ensure that we are protecting your accounts. But there is one important step you can also take, to help us protect you better.  Adding a verbal password to your account. 

Without a doubt, using credit cards can make life easier. You can buy anything and everything with just a swipe of your credit card. Buyers and retailers both use credit cards for their everyday transactions. However credit cards can also easily fall into the wrong hands, do you know how to avoid credit card scams?

With all of the recent data breaches and Facebook privacy concerns in the news the last few months, I felt it was important to highlight some of the financial security products and services that First Alliance Credit Union offers to you, most of them for free. Your financial security is our top priority; it is important that you know we integrate a lot of security checks and technology on the “back-end” of everything we do every single day. However, there are also additional products and services you can use to take control over your financial security. Here is a list of our favorite financial security products and service available to you right now.

Now that tax season is over, and Spring (we think) is finally going to come, we're pleased to announce that we will be holding a Free Shred Day!  Drop off your sensitive documents on Saturday, May 19, 2018 from 9:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at our 320 Alliance Place NE location in Rochester.