The Chicago Federal Reserve Banks’ 2008 Payments Conference has just finished. The hot topic this time around was Payments Fraud: Perception versus Reality

There was significant discussion about the main entry points to fraudulent transactions. Surprisingly, perhaps, most fraud happens in situations other than data breaches.

When your information is readily available, it can be compromised by company employees or people in your circle of influence such as your family or friends. And physical proof of identity can be garnered by a stolen wallet or simply fishing your account information out of the garbage.

As was astutely pointed out at the conference by Jeff Schmitt, an independent consultant (and reported by Linda Elliot ), whether you like it or not, your information is out there. The aim of fraud protection ought to be to make that information useless to those who seek to make illegal use of it.

It’s a good approach and a necessary one. But yet again, it does not go far enough. It’s not too late to change the rules of the game.

• Have you ever questioned why your information has to be quite so available?
• Have you ever thought that you might not need to answer every question asked on that application form?
• Have you ever tried just to say NO! when asked for yet another piece of personal information that you weren’t sure was needed?

In short, we think more people should challenge the status quo of an information hungry culture. Try giving out less information, and fewer personal details. You’ll leave a smaller footprint to follow. And you’ll help reduce the incidence of payments fraud.