From Sweeny Todd To Meany Fraud: Saving Your Salon From ConmenNovember 30, 2019Since salons and beauty establishments are a big source of revenue and are promising sources of money, they are liable to face fraud more often than other smaller businesses. Let’s talk about a case of fraud that took place in a salon in Jacksonville last year: scores of individuals reported being charged by the salon for services on their cards—people who had never been to the salon. The salon owners were equally baffled and mystified: they didn’t even have cards registered at their establishment. They accepted payments in cash. It was a classic case of identity theft. A salon in Australia faced an even more alarming situation. After witnessing a corruption in their bookings system, the salon owners were asked to pay a sizeable sum by the hackers if they wanted the program to be unscrambled. They were, basically, being held hostage until they paid. How Common is Fraud in Small Businesses? In 2017, a total of 2,675,611 complaints regarding fraud were made. According to a report compiled by Javelin Strategy in 2018, there were 16.7 million people who reported fraudulent identities in 2017. The losses that such breaches of privacy and invasion on the identities of millions of people bring about are massive: reaching to 16.8 billion as of last year. If these numbers aren’t staggering enough, each small business faces a fraud of $200,000 on an average, according to a recent report. Cases like the ones mentioned above are more common than the average salon owner might imagine. And to make matters worse, frauds exist in all forms: there is no telling what a conman might do to put your business at risk. Fraudulent cases are not limited to identity thefts or hacking of systems, which is why presently working and prospective salon owners need to practice vigilance and dexterity at all levels to escape being leeched of their hard-earned money. So what needs to be protected? First Off, Your Online Security Any shortcoming in your online setup is liable to make you vulnerable to the worst kind of offenses. Easier than real life conning, cyber breaches and cyber fraud is becoming increasingly prevalent—Facebook’s recent data breach affecting more than 50 million users being just one example—and can do major damage to your business. Here are a few things to take care of when managing your online presence: Be on Your Guard Against Phishing This is a no-brainer, but here goes: never open (or ask your employees to never open) an attachment received in their email, given it looks suspicious. Treat your business email like you’d treat your personal information. Be very careful about clicking on links and if you do accidently click on a suspicious link, quickly run a security check on all your accounts. Hell Hath No Fury Like an Employee Scorned Your employees are your lifeline and your workforce. It’s because of them that you’re able to make the money you make, because running a salon is never a job for one person. It’s a task that requires teamwork, and your employees become your business partners even though you might not look at it that way. But once you begin looking at it that way, you’ll realize how your employees affect your business. These are people who know your business and your establishment inside out. They have access to your booking software, your social media accounts, your official website, your clientele, your official business email account, and perhaps even your business bank details. In the event that all goes well and your employees are loyal, you’re in no danger. But in the event that all does not go well, you don’t need a sophisticated hacker to hurt your establishment. All you need is an angry employee, or a former employee, and you’re immediately vulnerable. Not only do your various accounts (bank, social media and email) become open to potential attack; your reputation and that of your establishment, both become a liability. The clientele can be copied and carried off by an employee who’s leaving. This way they can gain direct access and contact information of the clientele that you spent years on building. In many cases the clients will already be familiar with said employee and their work, and might change salons without realizing that they’re jumping to a different establishment altogether. Furthermore, your social media accounts can be misused to spread hurtful lies about you or your establishment. Or, they could be used to harass and put off your customers. Thus, as you continue reading this blog, you’ll find out how to keep these potential disasters at bay by ensuring maximum online security. A Powerful Password Whether it’s your bank account or your social media accounts, your password needs to be engineered so masterfully that you’re the only person who can crack it. It should under no circumstances even be guess-able by a third party. Unbeknownst to many, there are ways of getting to crack somebody’s password easily if some sort of information about them is public. So for instance you go with your mother’s name and your favorite football club on the side, and add your date of birth to the mix for added “complexity”. You might think it stellar, but anyone with access to your social media page—even as a viewer—can find out these little details about you by doing a little scrolling and stalking. Here are a few things you should definitely not include in your password: The date or year of your birth Pet names, parents’ names, best friend’s or spouse names Your address Favorites: clubs, teams, artists, etc. Your birthplace Additionally, if you think that writing Ronaldo as ‘R0n4ld0’ is a great display of trickery, then here’s news for you: it’s not. Seasoned hackers are fully acquainted with these commoners’ “tricks” and can decode them in no time. Sequences like ‘QWERT’ and ‘123456789’ are similarly very easy to guess, as are some of the world’s most common passwords (such as P4$$W0RD and asdfg123). Therefore, when setting up your password, here’s how you can ensure that nobody other than you can have any chance of guessing what the big word is: Use longer passwords since they’re more difficult to guess Mix up alphabets and numerals Fluctuate between upper and lower cases Use special characters (the hasthtag, the asterisk, punctuation marks, etc.) Use a password generator if you feel like you’re lacking the creative ingenuity required for the job. However, we’d still recommend that you make up the password yourself. Backups and Vigilant Employees As has been mentioned, running a salon is not a one-man job. You’ll need to share details and even passwords with some trusted members of your team. Educate them on how to be vigilant about your account details and guide them on how to deal with everything that’s online. A good way to begin is to explain the risks involved—and make them realize how it will affect them, since they too are stakeholders in your business. Your loss is directly their loss. Also make sure that you’ve got backups in place which function off-site and are automatic. This way you’ll be able to retain a copy of all your data in case you accidentally lose it. Prepare a Guidebook In a salon you’re constantly hiring new employees, which requires you giving each new employee an orientation on all the security policies. Instead of giving them a detailed orientation which they might be liable to forget, prepare for them a handbook which includes everything you’d ideally like to tell them. Cover under separate headings the policies regarding your hardware and software, your booking software and your client information, your accounts and their passwords (how to use them), and other things if you can think of any. It will take less than 10 minutes to type these up, but the time it will save you in the future is priceless. Additional Protection Additionally, here are the things you should be on your guard against: Refrain from typing your passwords when other people are watching. Nobody needs to be told this, but you should never tell somebody else your password. If you do innocently blurt it out, you need to change it immediately. Never write your password in an accessible place for others. Never use the same password for multiple accounts. In the event that you create different passwords for all your accounts, even if one of your accounts is hacked, the others will be safe entirely. Never open attachments and zip files sent to your email unless you’re absolutely sure of their safety. For your employees, set up different individual accounts and don’t let them all use one official account. Manage these accounts according to the hierarchy in your establishment. Not all your employees need all the details. Finally, when throwing away or changing old phones or computers, be very careful about your past information saved therein. Ensure that the device is stripped clean and run searches on your hard drive after getting the task done. Be Better Prepared The trick to ward off unwanted and fraudulent invaders of privacy is to prep beforehand: because like always, pre-warned is pre-armed. Beginning with the right idea in mind and carrying through with the right channel to pursue it is the way to go. Your ideas and plan should be both creative and foolproof. Make sure they’re bound to work and be effective at the very phase of beginning them, and they’ll be sure to bring you more income than you initially planned to generate. If you’re in need of ideas, you can sift through our blog or get a deeper, more detailed peep into the beauty industry from our e-book. Salon Income Booster has a number of ideas to offer, so be sure to try them out!