A wallet card to keep next to your bank card

How to print and cut it

1. Print at actual size. In the print window, choose "Actual size" or "100%," not "Fit to page," so the card comes out the size of a bank card. The page prints three cards: one for you and two to give away.
2. Cut along the dashed line around each card.
3. Fold along the dotted line in the middle, so the rules are on one side and the steps are on the other. A little glue or tape keeps the halves together.
4. Write in a name on the back: someone you'd call before paying anyone in a hurry.
5. Optional: cover it with clear packing tape to make it last.

The card is small on purpose. If the print is hard to read, the fridge sheet has the same rules and a few more, in large type on a full page.

Why each rule is on the card

Caller ID can be faked. The FTC explains that scammers use technology to change the phone number that appears on your caller ID, so a call can show a bank's or an agency's name and still come from anyone.

No real business or agency asks to be paid in gift cards. In the FTC's words, "No real business or government agency will ever tell you to buy a gift card to pay them."

Never pay anyone who insists on crypto, a wire or a payment app. The FTC's advice: "Never pay someone who insists that you can only pay with cryptocurrency, a wire transfer service like Western Union or MoneyGram, a payment app, or a gift card." Being told to pay in one particular way, such as cryptocurrency, a wire transfer or a payment app, is one of the FTC's four signs of a scam, and money sent those ways is hard to get back: of payment apps, the FTC says "Some scammers may try to trick you into sending them money through a mobile payment app. That’s because they know once you do, it’s hard for you to get your money back." The FTC: "Only scammers demand payment in cryptocurrency."

Never move money to "keep it safe." The FTC: "Your money is fine where it is, no matter what they say or how urgently they say it."

Never share a code that's texted to you. From the same FTC alert on moving money to "protect it": "No caller — especially someone from your bank’s fraud department — will ever ask for the verification code."

Never let a caller or a pop-up into your computer. The FBI's advice: "Do not allow an unknown individual who contacted you to have control of your computer." The FTC says legitimate tech companies won't call, email or text you about a problem with your computer, and that real security pop-ups never ask you to call a phone number.

Call the number on the back of your bank card. Your bank printed it there, so it doesn't come from the message. The FTC recommends contacting a company using a number you know is real, never one from the message.

Told to keep it secret? Tell someone. Scammers ask for secrecy so you won't check with anyone. The FTC's advice is to call another relative or friend even if you were told to keep it a secret.