Flanagan State Bank: 12 Days of Fraud Prevention: Stay Safe This Holiday Season

The holidays bring packed shopping carts, last-minute travel, and a surge of package deliveries, and scammers wait for this, their most lucrative season, every year. Fraud attempts spike every November and December, capitalizing on the extra emails, texts, and online purchases that come with the season. But holiday fraud prevention doesn’t require becoming a security expert. It takes a handful of habits, practiced consistently. At Flanagan State Bank, we’ve put this guide together to help south central Illinois families protect their money while they shop, travel, and give this holiday season.

Key Takeaways

• Scam volume rises sharply during the holidays, targeting shoppers, travelers, and donors alike.
• Most fraud prevention comes down to a few repeatable habits: verifying senders, securing accounts, and monitoring activity.
• Flanagan State Bank will never ask for your full account number, password, or one-time verification code over the phone, by text, or by email.
• Acting quickly if you suspect fraud and reporting it immediately is one of the biggest factors in limiting damage.

Day 1: Verify Every Email Before You Click

Holiday scam emails are built to create urgency, like a shipping problem, a “final notice,” a deal expiring in an hour. Before clicking any link, check the sender’s actual email address rather than just the display name, and hover over links to see where they really lead. When in doubt, go directly to the retailer’s website instead of clicking through the email.

Day 2: Watch Out for Fake Delivery Notifications

Online shopping scams love this time of year, and fake “your package couldn’t be delivered” texts are one of the most common. A real carrier notification won’t ask you to pay a fee to release a package or demand you confirm your address by clicking a link. If a tracking text feels off, go straight to the carrier’s official app or website and search your tracking number there instead of tapping the message.

In reality, this could look like a customer receiving a text claiming a $2.99 “redelivery fee” is due before a package can be dropped off. The link leads to a convincing but fake USPS-branded page asking for card details. The giveaway is that USPS doesn’t charge redelivery fees by text, and the URL isn’t usps.com.

Day 3: Shop Only on Secure Websites

Look for “https://” and a padlock icon in the address bar before entering payment information. Beyond that, shop with retailers you know, and be skeptical of holiday “flash sale” sites that showed up in an ad or a forwarded link rather than a search you did yourself. If a deal looks far below market price, that’s often the point. It’s designed to get your card number, not to sell you anything real.

Day 4: Never Share One-Time Verification Codes

A one-time code sent to your phone is meant for you alone, not for a bank representative, not for a retailer’s “customer service” line, not for anyone who calls asking for it. Legitimate institutions, including Flanagan State Bank, will never call and ask you to read a verification code back to them. If someone asks for one, that’s the clearest sign of a scam in progress.

Day 5: Create Strong, Unique Passwords

Reusing the same password across shopping sites, email, and banking means one breach can expose everything. Use a different password for each account, and lean on a password manager if remembering unique ones feels unmanageable. A strong password mixes length with unpredictability such as a random passphrase.

Day 6: Enable Multi-Factor Authentication

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) adds a second checkpoint, usually a code sent to your phone or an authentication app, so a stolen password alone isn’t enough to get into your account. Turn it on for online banking, email, and any shopping account that stores your card information. It’s a five-minute setup that closes one of the most common paths scammers use.

Day 7: Monitor Your Accounts Daily

Banking security tips are only useful if you actually check your accounts. A quick daily look at your balance and recent transactions during the holiday season makes it far easier to catch something unfamiliar before it turns into a bigger problem. Setting up account alerts can do a lot of this monitoring automatically.

Day 8: Be Cautious with Peer-to-Peer Payment Requests

Apps like Venmo, Zelle, and Cash App move money instantly and are difficult to reverse. Before sending a payment, especially to someone you haven’t paid before, double-check the request is genuinely from who it claims to be. Scammers sometimes impersonate a friend or family member’s account, or pose as a seller who “just needs a deposit” for an item that never arrives.

Day 9: Avoid Public Wi-Fi for Banking

Airport lounges, coffee shops, and hotel networks during holiday travel may be convenient, but their internet is not secure. Public Wi-Fi can expose your data to anyone else on the network. Save banking and any purchase involving payment information for a secured connection, or use your phone’s cellular data instead.

Day 10: Double-Check Charity Requests

Giving season brings a wave of legitimate fundraising, and a large number of fake charities riding along with it. Before donating, verify the organization directly through its official website rather than a link in an email or social post, and be wary of any charity pressuring you to give immediately or only accepting gift cards or wire transfers.

Day 11: Know What Your Bank Will Never Ask You For

This one is worth repeating because it’s the foundation of identity theft prevention: Flanagan State Bank will never call, text, or email asking for your full account number, online banking password, or a one-time verification code. If you receive a request like this, it isn’t really the bank. Hang up and call the bank directly using the number on your card or the website.

Day 12: Report Suspicious Activity Immediately

Time matters. The faster suspected fraud is reported, the more options there are to limit the damage: freezing a card, reversing a transaction, or flagging an account before more activity happens. Don’t wait to see if it resolves itself. Contact your bank the moment something looks wrong.

Holiday Banking Safety Starts with Awareness

Fraud prevention isn’t a one-time checklist. It’s a set of habits that hold up all year, not just during the holidays. But since scam volume climbs so sharply this time of year, a little extra vigilance in November and December goes a long way.

How Flanagan State Bank Helps Protect You

Flanagan State Bank offers several tools built to make holiday scam awareness easier to act on, not just something to think about:

• Account alerts that notify you of transactions, balance changes, or login attempts in real time
• Online and mobile banking security features, including multi-factor authentication
• Fraud education resources covering current scam trends throughout the year
• A direct line to the bank for reporting suspected fraud, any time something feels off

What to Do If You Suspect Fraud

• Contact Flanagan State Bank immediately using the number on your card or the official website, not a number from a suspicious email or text
• Change passwords on any account you think may be compromised
• Enable or review multi-factor authentication on your accounts
• Monitor your accounts closely for the next several weeks for unfamiliar activity
• Report the scam to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov
• Let friends or family know if a scam impersonated you, so they aren’t caught off guard by a follow-up attempt

For more on spotting and avoiding fraud year-round, visit Flanagan State Bank’s Fraud and Scam Awareness resources, or read “Spot the Scam: 5 Common Fraud Schemes to Watch for in 2026” for a deeper look at tactics scammers are using this year.

Staying safe this holiday season comes down to a few consistent habits like verifying before clicking, securing accounts, and reporting anything suspicious right away. Review Flanagan State Bank’s fraud prevention resources, enroll in account alerts and security features through online banking, and don’t hesitate to contact the bank directly if something feels wrong. And before the season gets busy, consider sharing this guide with friends and family. A few extra minutes of awareness can save a lot of trouble down the road.

{
“@context”: “https://schema.org”,
“@type”: “BlogPosting”,
“mainEntityOfPage”: {
“@type”: “WebPage”,
“@id”: “https://www.flanaganstatebank.com/2026/09/15/flanagan-state-bank-12-days-of-fraud-prevention-stay-safe-this-holiday-season/”
},
“headline”: “Flanagan State Bank: 12 Days of Fraud Prevention: Stay Safe This Holiday Season”,
“description”: “The holidays bring packed shopping carts, last-minute travel, and a surge of package deliveries, and scammers wait for this, their most lucrative season, every year. Fraud attempts spike every November and December, capitalizing on the extra emails, texts, and online purchases that come with the season. But holiday fraud prevention doesn’t require becoming a security expert. It takes a handful of habits, practiced consistently. At Flanagan State Bank, we’ve put this guide together to help south central Illinois families protect their money while they shop, travel, and give this holiday season.”,
“image”: “https://www.flanaganstatebank.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/489/reviewing-home-budgets-calculator-2.jpg”,
“author”: {
“@type”: “Organization”,
“name”: “Flanagan State Bank”,
“url”: “https://www.flanaganstatebank.com/”
},
“publisher”: {
“@type”: “Organization”,
“name”: “Flanagan State Bank”,
“logo”: {
“@type”: “ImageObject”,
“url”: “https://www.flanaganstatebank.com/wp-content/themes/0135_Flanagan_State_Bank/images/logo-small.png”
}
},
“datePublished”: “2026-09-15”,
“dateModified”: “2026-09-15”
}