You have fraud protection on your bank accounts and your credit cards, but what about your retirement accounts? Today we’ll explore an article from the Wall Street Journal outlining a case of cyber fraud in a 401K account. We’ll also discuss ways for people to safeguard their savings.
In the listener questions segment, I’ll answer a question about buying an RV in retirement and we’ll wrap up this episode with a question from Hal about whether to make Roth conversions or pay off the mortgage. Press play to get started on this episode of Retirement Starts Today.
Our retirement headline this week is titled Retirement Planning Gives Bigger Role to Theft Prevention as Risks Lurk Online. This article warns us against cyber fraud of retirement accounts. The laws regarding retirement income were enacted well before the internet, so they don’t address who should be responsible for this type of crime. We often have more money saved in our retirement accounts than in our checking accounts, so this kind of theft can be life-changing.
Retirement account cyber fraud used to be typically perpetrated by members of one’s own family, but in the past few years, strangers have played a bigger role in committing these types of crimes.
The article highlights one particular case where the account owners were shocked to discover that ⅔ of their retirement savings had been transferred to an unknown account. The couple then had to postpone their retirement indefinitely.
If you don’t want to have this happen to you there are steps you can take to protect yourself from cyber fraud.
Thieves always want to be ahead of us and the regulators so we have to stay on our toes. Listen in to hear the tips on how you can protect your hard-earned money and retire comfortably. You’ll also hear the answers to 2 relevant listener questions.
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