Summary
A new study by AARP finds only 4 in 10 American adults have set up online access to all their bank accounts, and only 57 percent have done so with their credit card accounts
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For instance, the AARP Fraud Watch Network recommends that consumers establish online access to all of their bank and credit card accounts. Yet the survey found that only about 4 in 10 American adults (43 percent) have done so with all of their bank accounts, and only 57 percent have set up access for all credit cards.
Re-using a password is another way to jeopardize your digital security, but nearly half of the survey’s respondents (48 percent) said they use a single password for two or more sites.
See related: Credit card losses from synthetic identity fraud jump
Perhaps most surprising was that although 47 percent of adults said they had experienced a fraudulent purchase on a credit or debit card, a paltry 14 percent said they had taken the step of requesting a credit report freeze.
With so many Americans reporting risky behaviors – and so few reporting smart security practices – it’s not surprising that a whopping 73 percent failed a “digital identity IQ” quiz, answering half or fewer of the 10 questions correctly.
AARP conducted its survey in July 2018 with the GfK Group, sampling a nationally representative group of approximately 2,000 U.S. adults age 18 and older. AARP released the findings Sep. 5.
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