I am looking to put my money in a high interest savings account but I am scared to bank online because of phishing, scammers, and all the threats we hear about on the local news. I see the online banks seem to pay higher interest than the brick and mortar banks just down the street which may not have these same threats.
Best answer to someone scared to bank online:
I know nothing about finance but I do know something about technology. Let me suggest to you that insisting on banking at an institution without an online capacity is not only too limiting in today’s world (many, many banks do this, now), but it is also unnecessary to address your concern. Saying that you don’t want a bank with online banking because someone might steal your computer is a little like saying you don’t want a bank with telephones because someone might call them and try to trick them out of your money.
A more savvy, less restrictive approach would be to simply never use online banking at whatever institution you select. You have to choose a user name and password to even set up online banking; then you have to go to the web site and enter that information. If you never do those things, anyone who stole your computer would have exactly the same level of access to your account that they would from a public internet terminal – none. So, in a nutshell: if you’re concerned about online banking, don’t use it; but don’t make it criteria for filtering out perfectly good institutions.
Bill, California
We here at Banklady.com agree with Bill on this issue. People have no reason to be so afraid to bank online with all the new technology to prevent threats implemented at online banks. Most online banks have more than one security log-on in addition to the normal log-in.