Any experiences of Identity Theft??

[GummiRabbit]

I know people have a lot of security concerns, and I do too, but just curious if anyone has actually experienced any aspect of identity theft (or just stolen information in general) through Mint? I'd like to hear your stories...

[downrollings]

ya....now a days security concerns are taken more seriously because cyber crime has increased a lot

[Clarissa]

Hi Minters,

For more clarifications regarding security concern please refer to the explanations below

The usernames and passwords you use to access your online financial accounts are not viewable by Mint.com employees or contractors . This information is collected from you one time only in order to establish a persistent connection to your financial institutions. Your credentials are encrypted and securely passed to our online service providers who maintain them in order to deliver your transactional data to the Mint service. The information is never stored on the Mint.com site.

In addition to the points above, your credit card company protects you in
case of fraud and you would not lose this protection in any way by using the Mint service. But what you may not know is that Regulation E, which is a set of rules issued by the Federal Reserve governing electronic transactions(online banking, ATM withdrawals, debit card payments) limits your liability in most cases to $50 in the event of fraud. Consumers must notify their bank of the fraud within 2 business days. On the third day the liability goes up to $500 and it can be more if notification occurs after 60 days. Regulation E rules are designed to encourage consumers to feel safe about electronic transactions. Even if a consumer has acted negligently and succumbed to a phishing or fraud attack and given away personal identification information that led to the fraud, they will be protected. In fact, one of the reasons the Mint service provides email and mobile alerts is so you don’t even need to log in to become immediately aware of any fraudulent activity.

Here are three things to consider:

First, Mint has bank-level data security. That means we have the same level of encryption your bank does, along with outside third-party verification through Verisign and Hackersafe. We also have routine security audits where so-called “white knight hackers” try to break into our system — they’ve never been successful. We also have bank-level physical security. Our servers are located in an unmarked secure building which requires a palm scan to gain entry. After making it past guards, you have to go through a “man-trap” where one door will not open until the other closes and you again have biometric access. Once you get inside, our servers are in a locked cafe monitored with 24/7 video surveillance. Get inside, and the racks themselves are locked. Break those open, and our hard drives are encrypted. It’s seven layers of protection. All that’s missing are the electrified floors…

Second, Mint is a read-only system. Even if someone managed to gain access to your account, they cannot move money around, your accounts cannot be drained. Mint is also an anonymous system. If you notice at sign up we don’t ask for a name, address, SSN or anything personally identifying ( https://wwws.mint.com/login.event?task=S ). Nor do we ever ask for your account numbers or credit card numbers. When you provide your bank username and password, this simply establishes a secure one-way connection with your bank authorizing Mint to download your transactions, balances, and bill due dates on your behalf. Quicken and MS Money have asked for this same information (in desktop form) for the past 10 years.

Third, Mint can actually help keep you safer than online banking. It may seem counter-intuitive to your readers (”All my accounts in ONE place???”), but Mint can monitor all your accounts for fraud or mis-charges every day. Javelin Research finds that 90 percent of all fraud starts offline, not online ( http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9004429 ) . Meaning you’re much more likely to be ripped off at a gas station or restaurant than online. Given that the average American has four or five different credit and bank cards, you can either login to all those websites every day looking for fraud, or wait 30-45 days for a paper statement (by then it’s too late). Instead, Mint looks for “unusual spending” across all your accounts every day. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people have written in to say that Mint was their first line of defense against fraud. In fact, we can often do this better than banks. See, for example, when we notified our users about a widespread fraudulent charge first reported in the Washington Post from “Adele” ( http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/anya-kamenetz/green-day/mintcom-helps-stop-fraud ) .

For even more in-depth information on how Mint handles your security and practices to increase your financial security online please check out the following:

http://www.mint.com/privacy/
http://www.mint.com/privacy/faq/
http://www.mint.com/privacy/security-tech
http://www.mint.com/privacy/terms/